WELDBEND Commits to Approximately $7 Million

Weldbend announces Price Sheet 222 effective February 1, 2022.  Current discounts and freight terms will remain the same.

With increases this past year in shipping, labor, and steel for our products, we were able to hold pricing on fittings due to contracts that were in place.  Now that those contracts have run out, and with new deliveries of pipe at increased pricing, Weldbend is forced to raise our fitting prices.

As one of our domestic pipe suppliers stated, “Deliveries of our small diameter bar for tube up to 3” has been sketchy at best, and I’m being diplomatic.”  Deliveries to Weldbend on these sizes have been with long lead times and late deliveries.  If we were to place orders for these sizes today, deliveries would not start until late August or September.  Delivery of pipe for sizes 4” – 16” elbows is fairly regular but still not always meeting delivery schedules.  U.S. Steel, the producer for our large diameter pipe (18” – 24” Elbow) in Lorain, Ohio, currently has no plans at this time to restart production.

The U.S. Pipe mills are no different than mills in other countries.  A major Japanese pipe company plans on raising prices momentarily and we are told they still have not met their delivery schedules for the 4^th Quarter of 2021.  Vallourec in Europe has launched the disposal process of their German assets and relocation of their oil and gas activities to Brazil.  If no buyer is identified for this mill, Vallourec will look at an alternative, including closure, while meeting all supply obligations through the end of 2023.  Along with the shrinking of manufacturers of pipe, everyone has run into problems on the cost of not only shipping domestically but have also seen major problems with ocean freight as well as the lack of available booking space that, in some instances, have quadrupled in cost.  Not only do companies that are shipping to the United States have products sitting on the docks in foreign countries for weeks waiting for space on these boats, when the boats do get to U.S. ports, they are also waiting weeks to get unloaded which makes the cost of all goods more expensive.

Here at Weldbend, we currently have a capital improvement expansion underway.  Since January 1, 2022, we have committed to approximately $7 million worth of new equipment and improvements which will all be on-line for both fittings and flanges by the end of this year 2022.   We hope this will make our deliveries even more complete than they have been at any time in the past.

If you have any questions, please contact your Sales Representative or Weldbend Corporation.