Page 13 - ITAtube Journal 1 2022

Market information
On one side we can see the dominance of gas projects (ab. 83%), on the other side a quite inhomogeneous spread of projects around the world. Asia Pacific, dominated by China and North America are the centres of pipeline project activities. Russia as one of the main oil and gas produc-
ing countries seems to reduce its supply dependence from Europe in favour of Asia by building oil and gas pipelines to the Asian destinations.
Considering, that the overall utilisation of pipe production plants for pipeline pipes > 16” is around 30% only, it can be assumed, that such plants without unique locations or technologies are critical regarding their future prospects (Fig 11).
The second largest market segment for tubes and pipes is the automotive market with about 15% market share.
The automotive production in 2020 was heavily hit by the corona pandemic. Many OEM´s and their suppliers production plants had to face temporary shut-downs with the consequence that the automotive deliveries declined by about 15% (Fig.12). In 2021, when the industry restarted, it was expected, that the automotive indus- try would restart with the same pace as well. The market demand was recovering, anyhow the automobile industry could not manage their supply chains to serve the increasing demand from the market. Mainly IT parts, such as microprocessors created a serious bottleneck for the indus- try. Consequently, the automotive produc- tion declined by another 10% in 2021. The tube and pipe industry was very hardly hit by this supply volume decline in combina- tion with the significant cost increases for energy and raw material. If we look at hot
ITAtube Journal April 2022
Figure 11: Plant Utilization of Pipe Productions for OD > 16” Source: ITATube Journal/Wirtschaftsvereinigung Stahlrohr
Figure 12: World car production 2016/2021 Source: Statista
rolled coil prices, we see a major challenge for ERW pipes. Since September 2020 the prices have gone up by about 340%, from 450 US$/ton to a peak of about 1500 US$/ ton in November 2021. Since than the prices for hot rolled coils had a moderate decline on high level. Now the prices raise again.
13