Page 11 - ITAtube Journal 1 2024

Market information
Comparing the price difference between HRC and finished structural tubes and pipes type S 235 (Figure 5), it becomes obvious how small the margins for tube producers of such products are. There were even time periods, with negative margins.
Some tube and pipe producers even stopped their welding operations tem- porary and fed seamless pipes into their finishing lines to overcome such margin losses. Steel plates are traded according Kallanish on 19th March 2024 for low grade plates at about 650 USD/ton.
Billet prices, used for seamless tubes are traded for an average of around 500 USD/ ton.
In 2024 almost all prices for tubular pre-materials were quite volatile. It remains a challenge to predict the pre-material price developments.
Figure 5, shows the price development for two representative tube grades since June 2022:
- P110 OCTG O.D. 5,5” alloyed casing pipe.
- S235 non alloyed structural pipe.
The OCTG pipe price for P110, after its hight in October 2022 (ab. 3.900 USD/
ton) suffered a price decline of ab. 46% until October 2023 (ab. 2.100 USD/ton) - however, since then, it seems the price has bottomed out.
The structural pipe S235 although on a much lower price niveau, characterized by much less volatility almost maintained its price level at ab. 700-800 USD/ton.
The world tube and pipe production after a slight downturn in 2022 of -1%, had
an impressive recovery in 2023 of +14% (Figure 6).
Anyhow substantial regional differences are reported. CIS (+17%), the strong
growth most likely due to compensation of imported pipes by local production (Figure 7). Remarkable is that contrary to the trend, the production of welded tubes < 406 mm OD was suffering by – 38%, whereas the segment of pipeline pipes > 406 mm OD was growing by 67% (Figure 7). This trend seems to be fired by the need to build
new pipelines to redirect the gas originally
ITAtube Journal April 2024
Figure 5: Representative Steel Tube and Pipe Prices (OCTG – P110 USA and Structural S235 Turkey)
Source: Kallanish.com
Figure 6: World Tube and Pipe Production 2017 – 2023. Source: Wirtschaftsvereinigung Stahlrohre e.V.
send to Europe. USA (+19%) with strong growth in all dimensional segments driven by the strong economic situation and the strong oil and gas demand (Figure 8). China representing more than 50% of the world tube production had a further gain of
15%, which is by far more than the overall economic growth in China. Particularly the seamless tube segment reported a remark- able increase of +23% (Figure 9). India after a week 1st half year
2023 reported a booming 2nd half year ending up at a full year 2023 increase of
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