I was taking a machining class last year and our instructor worked for a company that used pipe product, he said that the quality of the pipe from USS was so bad that they had to go elsewhere for material. His company is located in McKeesport.
Maybe the union environment and plant equipment condition makes it more profitable to build the pipe elsewhere and ship it to PA for the drillers.
I’ll bet that’s it. Cheaper and better quality non union.
I was a pipe inspector years ago.
When I was an inspector US pipe had a reject rate anywhere from 10%-25% average. Some I inspected had a reject rate close to 99%, bad upsetting.
Sounds like nothing has changed in 20 years.