After the 2013 NASPD Annual Conference’s kickoff cocktail reception in Las Vegas on February 21, 2013, the nearly 500 attendees got down to the business of making sense of the pipe market during the general session Friday morning.
Speakers included Welspun Americas Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Joel Johnson—offering a mill perspective of the industry—and Economist Dr. Lauren Scott, who highlighted the demand for steel and pipe within the energy sector.
“A steady growth for natural gas is being predicted,” Johnson said. “There will be growth in production, and both liquid and vapor gas will increase. There are economic benefits of production and there is continued pressure on decreased dependence on foreign oil.”
With that increase in demand for natural gas, miles of new pipeline will be needed.
“Drilling in the future should rebound due to increased gas prices, and that demand will bring manufacturing back to the United States,” he said. “Older pipelines will need to be replaced, and there are a lot of lines that are 50 years or older. This will also help drive demand.”
Scott repeated the positive outlook, noting “there are a lot of good things going on in your sector.”
“There are shale plays all over the US,” he said. “And there are three potential sources for increased demand. The first is manufacturing in general, chemicals specifically. The fluids we get from natural gas are used to create things from toys to housewares to carpets to clean burning boiler fuel.”
The second source for increased demand will be power producers.
“The EPA is attacking coal fired power plants, and natural gas is a low alternative cleaner fuel,” Scott said. “There will be very little change in demand within this sector for the next two to three years, but after that a lot of coal fired power plants will be shut down.”
The third source of demand will be LNG exports, which is why so many are focused on who will be the country’s next Secretary of Energy.
Scott also cited potential within the oil sector. “Prices are high and we think it’s going to stay high,” he said, “and although deep water permits have been declining they are now coming back up. Deep water rigs are expected, and forecasted to increase.”