Steel plate, the next battleground
By Staff -- Purchasing, 4/8/1999 2:00:00 AM
Representatives of Asian and European steel mills rebut charges that imports are destroying the U.S. plate market. The foreign mills contend their shipments increased in 1997 and 1998 simply to fill holes in supply left by a domestic industry that was slow to react to a strengthening market.
A request for punitive tariffs on imported cut-to-length steel plate has been filed by Bethlehem Steel, Gulf States Steel, Tuscaloosa Steel, Ipsco Steel, and the U.S. Steel Group of USX against plate mills in the Czech Republic, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Macedonia, and South Korea. The domestic mills contend that foreign mills have underpriced plate by up to 175%.
"We are not seeking protection from competitive practices," says Joseph Cannon, chairman of Geneva Steel. "We can compete against fair competition, but not the illegal dumping of plate." He says his firm recently entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in large part due to huge 1998 tonnages of ultra-low-priced foreign plate.
Roger Shagrin, attorney for the U.S. mills, says "the import crisis in 1998 was caused by foreign producers who undersold the U.S. mills, essentially ruining the domestic plate business for domestic suppliers." Speaking for the importers at a recent International Trade Commission hearing, trade attorney Donald Cameron, Jr. argued that earlier capacity increases by U.S. companies had put downward pressure on prices, causing low spot prices months before the import surge.
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