The Italian seamless pipe market has lately been characterized by contrasting trends. Italian seamless pipe consumers remain cautious about purchases, while export demand for Italian seamless pipes is becoming better, especially in the segment of premium OCTG products. Over the past month, domestic offers of Italian seamless pipes, on the whole, have remained within the previous price range, just with the upper end moving up by €15/mt ($17/mt). Export quotations of Italian seamless pipes have increased by €20-30/mt ($22-33/mt) over the past month. During the period under review, prices of Romanian seamless pipes for Italy have risen by €5-20/mt ($6-22/mt). Over the same period offers of Chinese material have moved down by €20-35/mt ($22-39/mt). Prices of Ukrainian seamless pipes for Italy have declined by €35-40/mt ($39-44/mt) during the past month, while import quotations of seamless pipes from the Czech Republic have decreased by a maximum of €10/mt ($11/mt). Local seamless pipe consumers and traders are still very cautious about placing orders due to the uncertain economic situation in the EU and the lack of investment projects. Meanwhile, market players hope that the improvement in overseas demand will prevent any price decrease from Italian suppliers in the coming period.
Current domestic prices for Italian seamless pipes of 2"-6" size as per ASTM or EN are at about €1,020-1,065/mt ($1,132-1,182/mt) ex-works.
Export quotations of Italian seamless pipes of 2"-6" Sch 40 of grade B as per ASTM A106 are at around €1,070-1,110/mt ($1,187-1,232/mt) FOB.
Prices for Chinese seamless pipes, 2"-6" grade B made to ASTM, are at about €585-650/mt ($649-721/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 €800-820/mt ($888-910/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 ($1,055-1,088/mt) CPT.
Czech origin 3"-10" seamless steel tubes (ArcelorMittal Ostrava), as per ASTM, are quoted for Italian consumers at around €910-940/mt ($1,010-1,044/mt) CPT.
€1 = $1.11