Weak demand for seamless pipes in Iran has prevented suppliers from raising their prices. The unstable political situation in the country and the approach of the end of the current Iranian year (ends March 20) has resulted in depressed seamless pipe buying activity in Iran. Both end-users and traders are maintaining their stocks at minimal levels. However, prices of domestic production seamless pipes have not changed over the past month amid high production costs and limited imports. At the same time, import offers of Ukrainian and Russian material have gone down by around $30-50/mt, while quotations of Chinese seamless pipes have decreased by $20/mt.
Market players believe improvement is unlikely in the coming short-term period, while there is also a lot of ambiguity about market sentiment for the coming Iranian year.
Current domestic prices of Iranian production seamless pipes of 1"-4" grade B made to API 5L are at $1,100-1,150/mt ex-works.
Import offers of Chinese seamless pipes, 2"-6" grade B made to ASTM A106/API 5L, are being given to the local Iranian market at $850-900/mt CFR Bandar Abbas, while offers of 7"-9 5/8" casing of grade L80 as per API 5CT are coming to the Iranian market at around $1,100-1,150/mt CFR.
Quotations of Ukrainian seamless pipes of 2"-8" size grade B as per ASTM A106 are at about $1,060-1,120/mt CFR Bandar Abbas for April production.
Russian pipes of 2"-6" grade B as per ASTM A106 or GOST are being offered to northern Iranian ports at $950-1,060/mt CFR from producers ChTPZ and TMK.