OK, Perspectives knows, we shouldn’t cry wolf. But that doesn’t mean we’re not gonna!

The United Steelworkers union (USW) doesn’t want to see China’s Tianjin Pipe Group Corp. (TPCO) build a new oil country tubular goods (OCTG) mill in Texas because the new mill would create overcapacity in the United States, a union official said.

Energy firm TransCanada Corp. has received an important OK from Canadian officials in its quest to build a $1.7-billion, 1,980-mile pipeline connecting and delivering western Canadian crude oil to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

What would an edition of Perspectives be without at least a short story on the issue of alleged anti-dumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) evasions?

If you are a pipe and tube producer looking into the future, what are the major energy trends that will be critical to understand and respond to over the next 20 to 30 years?

The Obama administration may be making a full court press, rhetorically at least, to boost U.S. exports. Perspectives isn’t going to weigh-in on whether the U.S. can realistically export its way out of economic troubles. But it would seem that any nascent export boom isn’t trickling down to the steel tube and pipe sector.

Gulf International Pipe Industry LLC (GIPI) has officially cut the ribbon on its mill in Sohar, Oman, according to a local media report.

Pipe makers are offering $750 to $800 per tonne fob for OCTG J55/K55 plain tubing, about $20 to $30 higher than last month, according to market sources.

California Steel Industries Inc. (CSI), whose 2009 slab purchases fell more than 45 percent from the previous year and 60 percent below its peak years, will substantially boost its semifinished buys in 2010, although it still won’t reach earlier levels.

A host of tubular producers have hiked mechanical tubing prices by $50 per ton as a result of rising raw material costs.

A subsidiairy of Germany’s Wilh. Schulz GmbH has broken ground in Mississippi on a mill that will make tubular products for the energy industry, according to local reports

pecialty steel tube maker RathGibson Inc. has filed a Chapter 11 restructuring plan in bankruptcy court, saying it hopes to resolve its financial issues by this summer.

An industrial heat exchanger fabricator is suing an India-based stainless tube producer for more than $4 million, alleging that well over half of the products it received were defective.