The seamless pipe market in Italy at the end of the year seems quiet, with local and foreign consumers staying rather inactive. According to data announced by Tenaris, sales of tubular products and services decreased due to a sharp reduction in volumes, which was partially offset by higher average selling prices, reflecting in part a higher proportion of sales of specialized high-end products. All regions were affected except for the Middle East and Africa which benefited from higher sales of deepwater line pipe products in West Africa. In North America, notwithstanding higher demand for OCTG products in Mexico, demand for OCTG products in the US and Canada declined precipitously due to the decline in drilling activity and inventory reductions. Tenaris’ sales in South America were affected by low levels of demand in Venezuela and Argentina. In Europe, the company’s sales were affected by lower demand from the industrial sector, lower demand from distributors serving the process and power plant sector and lower sales of OCTG, principally in Romania. Sales in the Far East and Oceania were lower, mainly in Japan and China.
Domestic and export quotations of Italian seamless pipes have dropped in some cases by €20/mt over the past month. Quotations of seamless pipes from the Czech Republic have decreased by €20/mt and prices of Russian material have remained at previous levels. At the same time, Ukrainian suppliers have increased their offers for the Italian market by €15-40/mt over the period of review.
Current domestic prices for December production Italian seamless pipes of 2"-5" size grade B as per ASTM A106/API 5L are at about €860-900/mt ex-works, while prices for 6"-8" pipes are at around €980-1,030/mt ex-works.
Export quotations of December production Italian seamless pipes of 2"-5" size grade B as per ASTM A106/API 5L are at €890-930/mt FOB, while quotations for 6"-8" size are at €1,010-1,050/mt FOB.
December-January production Ukrainian 2"-6" seamless pipes ex-Interpipe grade B as per ASTM A106 are offered to the Italian market at around €640-660/mt DDU, while offers for 8"-12" seamless pipes are at €710-725/mt DDU (25.1 percent AD duty is not included in either of these price ranges). Seamless water and gas pipes of 1"-4" size grade S195T as per EN 10255 from Pervouralsky Novotrubny Works (CHTPZ Group, Russia) are offered to Italy on average at €700/mt DDU for January production (24.1 percent AD duty not included).
Prices for January production Czech origin seamless steel tubes for boilers (ArcelorMittal Ostrava) up to 10" made to EN 10216 are at about €820/mt, including delivery inside Italy.
With oil prices at an attractive level now and inventories closer to more reasonable levels, market insiders expect that the activity level will stabilize after Christmas and the New Year holidays and that pipe shipments will begin to show a moderate increase in the first quarter of next year.