The European Union imposed tariffs as high as 71.5 percent on steel pipes from China to help EU producers including Salzgitter AG (SZG) compete with cheaper imports.
The duties punish Chinese exporters such as Changshu Walsin Specialty Steel Co. for selling stainless steel seamless pipes and tubes in the EU below cost, a practice known as dumping. The oil, natural-gas, electricity, chemical, construction and waste- incineration industries use the pipes and tubes.

European manufacturers including Germany’s Salzgitter Mannesmann Stainless Tubes have suffered “material injury” as a result of dumped imports from China, the European Commission, the 27-nation EU’s trade authority in Brussels, said today in the Official Journal. The levies, due to take effect tomorrow, are for six months and may be prolonged for five years.

Chinese exporters expanded their combined share of the EU market for stainless-steel seamless pipes and tubes to 18.4 percent in the 12 months through June 2010 from 10.5 percent in 2006, according to the commission.

The duties are the preliminary outcome of an inquiry that the commission opened last September after a dumping complaint against China by an industry group on behalf of producers that account for more than 50 percent of the EU’s output of the pipes and tubes. The levies range from 48 percent to 71.5 percent, depending on the Chinese manufacturer.

EU governments, acting on a proposal from the commission, must decide within six months whether to turn the provisional anti-dumping duties into “definitive” levies lasting for five years.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net