Over the past 10 months, US tubular producers have filed three separate trade cases against Chinese shipments. The process is a costly and time-consuming one. And, in the end, the final determinations don't guarantee the rules won't be circumvented.

Brilliant timing or blind luck? Either way, life is looking a little simpler to at least one player in the oil country tubular goods (OCTG) market. But there's always a flip side, and when things are simplified on one side they're typically complicated as hell on the other.

Management at Laguna Tubular Products Corp. seem to have hit the nail on the head in timing the market. The company in December purchased 26.5 acres near Houston to build a mill to finish OCTG products to be sold throughout the United States and Canada. The construction comes at a time when North American imports of OCTG products from China have been reduced due to trade cases alleging government subsidization.

The company will get its raw material from parent company Tuberia Laguna SA de CV, which makes tubulars at its mill in Torreon, Mexico, according to Buddy Brewer, president and chief operating officer of Houston-based Laguna Tubular. "The OCTG mill in Torreon was begun three years ago, way before the Chinese trade cases came up," he said. "It looks like we were really smart, but the trade cases definitely simplify our life."

But life's not so simple for the attorneys...