Over the past month, an upward trend has been observed in the Italian seamless pipe market. Italian suppliers have raised their domestic and export quotations by €20-50/mt ($26-65/mt) citing the rises in prices of raw materials. Offers of Chinese materials have increased by around €10-15/mt (down $2-7/mt) over the past month, while import prices of seamless pipes from Ukraine have increased by €20-30/mt (max. $12/mt), mainly due to the weaker euro against the US dollar. Quotations of Romanian and Czech seamless pipes have remained unchanged over the same period.
At the same time, buying activity in the Italian seamless pipes remains limited due to poor demand from consuming sectors. The prospects are a little brighter for late 2014 as end-user demand will improve slowly and as export demand from markets in the Middle East, where Europe is one of the main suppliers, looks set to increase too.
Current domestic prices for Italian seamless pipes of 2"-6" size as per ASTM or EN are at about €970-1,030/mt ($1,256-1,334/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 ($1,295-1,359/mt) FOB.
Prices for Chinese seamless pipes, 2"-6" grade B made to ASTM, are at about €580-640/mt ($751-829/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 €790-810/mt ($1,023-1,049/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 ($1,230-1,269/mt) CPT.
Czech origin 3"-10" seamless steel tubes (ArcelorMittal Ostrava), as per ASTM, are quoted for Italian consumers at around €920-950/mt ($1,191-1,230/mt) CPT.
€1 = $1.29