April 2012 | Welded steel tube & pipe
Substrate pricing providing little support for welded tubing prices: Americas Market Analysis
Producers hiked prices but the downside factors outweigh any price support.
Flat product prices tumbled into March with list HR prices settling at $700/ton, and spot or volume sales as low as $660-680/ton, as oversupply weighed on a market anxious to raise operating rates. Hoping to stem the losses and mark the bottom of the market, mills announced flat-rolled price increases in late March and early April. The hikes are intended to take HR to $720/ton, but market participants are skeptical that the moves will be accepted as the factors that weakened prices – declining costs and ample supplies – still threaten the market this month. Indeed, scrap costs in April retreated $10-20/l.ton for the obsolete grades and $15/l.ton for prime bundles and busheling scrap, curbing the cost-push support for pricing increases. Producers seek price floorIn mid-April, producers of construction and mechanical tubing – both seamless and welded – announced price hikes of $30-40/ton on shipments beginning in May. While MBR...
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