OCTG

OCTG producers form trade association to promote domestic industry

November 29, 2023

Six US manufacturers of oil country tubular goods (OCTG) have come together to establish a Washington, D.C.-based trade association. The goals of the new US OCTG Manufacturers Association (USOMA) are to promote the interests of the domestic industry and to fight unfairly traded OCTG imports.

Tenaris, Vallourec Star, Borusan Pipe US, PTC Liberty Tubulars, Welded Tube US, and Axis Pipe and Tube are the founding members of USOMA. Together, the companies represent an estimated 75% of domestic OCTG production, with 19 facilities across nine states and a combined 7,500 employees.

Luca Zanotti, Tenaris US president, was elected to be USOMA’s first chairman.

“As American energy production is a matter of national security, we must promote and develop reliable, domestic supply chains, such as a world-class US OCTG industry,’ Zanotti said in a statement.

Imports account for about half of the US market, Zanotti said. Many foreign producers do not have their own local markets for OCTG. Thus, the US market is an attractive destination for their products.

“The US industry can replace these imports and create thousands of high-paying jobs in American OCTG plants and in the American steel plants that supply their hot rolled coils, while reducing the carbon footprint,” Zanotti added.

Veteran trade attorney Roger Schagrin of Schagrin Associates will serve as USOMA’s general counsel.

“Our goal is to level the playing field for the US OCTG industry and bring OCTG imports down to market shares aligned with basic steel products. At a time when US trade and climate policy is focusing on decarbonization, it is important that US OCTG manufacturers offer exploration and production companies domestically manufactured, reliable, low-GHG products,” Schagrin commented.

Laura Miller

Laura Miller is a reporter and editor for Steel Market Update. She has held a variety of positions within the steel industry since 2007, including reporting and editing for Steel Business Briefing/Platts, the Association for Iron and Steel Technology, and Kallanish Commodities, as well as marketing for what was then known as ThyssenKrupp Steel USA (now AM/NS Calvert). After a five-year hiatus working across other industries, she returned to steel in 2021 and has covered the flat rolled, tubular, and trade areas of the industry. She is a member of the Association of Women in the Metal Industries and a past-president of the AWMI Pittsburgh Chapter. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at laura@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7869.