EU extends duties on steel pipes from Russia, Ukraine

BRUSSELS, Oct 3 (Reuters) – The European Commission said on Wednesday it had extended duties on imported steel and iron pipes and tubes from Russia and Ukraine for another five years.

The duties on seamless pipes range from 24.1 to 35.8 percent for imports from Russia and from 12.3 to 25.7 percent for imports from Ukraine. Duties have been in place since 1997, after EU producers claimed Russia and Ukraine were dumping the products in European markets and will now run until October 2023.

The EU has 52 trade defence measures currently in place on imported iron and steel products, many of them from China but also extending to other countries, such as Russia, India and Turkey.

The request for an extension came from the European Steel Tube Association (ESTA), which argued that significant quantities of dumped products would arrive if the measures ended.

The sector in Europe employs 13,000 people, with manufacturing in the Czech Republic, France, Germany and Italy.

(By Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Susan Fenton)