Trading activity in the Italian seamless pipe market has been relatively scarce over the past month on account of the seasonally low demand from consuming sectors. Over the past month, domestic suppliers have kept their offers of seamless pipes unchanged for Italian and foreign customers. Offers of Chinese and Ukrainian materials have stayed mostly unchanged over the past month, while import prices of seamless pipes from Romania and the Czech Republic have decreased by €10-20/mt ($42-55/mt). Market participants do not foresee any significant improvement in demand fundamentals at least until the end of the year as buying activity may weaken further in the winter period, while seamless pipe prices may succumb to downward pressure from scrap prices.
Current domestic prices for Italian seamless pipes of 2"-6" size as per ASTM or EN are at about €970-1,020/mt ($1,203-1,265/mt) ex-works.
Export quotations of Italian seamless pipes of 2"-6" Sch 40 of grade B as per ASTM A106 are at around €1,000-1,050/mt ($1,240-1,302/mt) FOB.
Prices for Chinese seamless pipes, 2"-6" grade B made to ASTM, are at about €560-610/mt ($694-756/mt) CFR Italy. Prices are exclusive of antidumping (AD) duties of 17.7-39.2 percent.
Ukrainian 2"-6" seamless pipes as per GOST, ASTM or EN are offered to the Italian market at around €780-810/mt ($967-1,004/mt) CPT (12.3-13.8 percent AD duty not included).
Prices for Romanian origin seamless steel tubes (ArcelorMittal Roman) of 3"-10" grade B made to ASTM or as per EN are at about €950-980/mt ($1,178-1,215/mt) CPT.
Czech origin 3"-10" seamless steel tubes (ArcelorMittal Ostrava), as per ASTM, are quoted for Italian consumers at around €920-960/mt ($1,141-1,190/mt) CPT.
€1 = $1.24