McDermott to be forced to pay more for its imported steels

McDermott Indonesia will have to pay more and more for welded steel pipes it imports from Japan, Singapore, South Korea and China following the move from local pipe producers to demand the imposition of higher countervailing duties for the importation of steel pipes from those countries.

McDermott, the winner of a government tender to build the 485 kilometers gas piping project from Natuna to Singapore, has appointed Marubeni to supply 150,000 steel pipes for the project. McDermott did not involve any local company to supply the pipes.

The government has imposed countervailing duties of between 5 percent and 81 percent for steel pipes imported from Japan and 78 percent for steel pipes imported from Singapore.

However, local steel producers grouped in the Association of Indonesian Pipe Producers (Gapipa), filed a proposal to the Indonesian Anti-Damping Committee (KADI) to slap a uniform countervailing duties of 81 percent for all steel pipes imported from Japan.

Gapipa deputy chairman Abas F Soeriawidjaja said that the dumping practices especially from Japan had inflicted losses for local pipe producers.

He said that as the duties varied among companies, Japan producers could still dump their steel pipes in Indonesia using companies with less duties like Nippon Steel that was penalized with only 5 percent countervailing duties.

They also demanded that KADI imposed countervailing for steel pipes imported from South Korea and China as they had strong evidence that steel pipe producers in these two countries also dumped their products in Indonesia. (*)