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Why Welspun Corp Expects To Benefit From Trump’s Trade Barbs

Welspun Corp expects its capacity utilisation of U.S. plant to rise to 80-85% in FY19, its Managing Director said.

An employee uses a crane as he prepares to move a steel pipe at a mill. (Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)
An employee uses a crane as he prepares to move a steel pipe at a mill. (Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)

Welspun Corp Ltd. expects to benefit from the tariff imposed by the U.S. on large-diameter welded pipes imported from India.

“Welspun’s U.S. plant will see higher utilisation as imports from low-cost producing countries to the U.S. will stop,” its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Vipul Mathur told BloombergQuint in an interaction. Capacity utilisation of the U.S. plant is likely to rise to 80-85 percent in the current financial year from 45 percent in the previous financial year, he added.

Targeting pipe imports from India, China, South Korea and Turkey, the U.S. government yesterday imposed up to a 541.15 percent import duty – the highest among all the other three nations – on large-diameter pipes imported from India, according to a media statement by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The import of large-diameter welded pipe from India was an estimated $294.7 million in 2017, the statement added.

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Mathur expects volumes to increase by 11-15 percent on a yearly basis and margins in its U.S. entity to expand.

Watch the full interaction here: