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30 January 2012
The Purchasing Manager’s Indices (PMI) for Saudi Arabia and UAE, according to HSBC, are very robust with Saudi Arabia’s PMI, 57.7, leading the way.
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23 December 2011
EU summit decisions in the coming few weeks regarding policies to mitigate the eurozone sovereign-debt crisis will set the tone in the following year for the manufacturing, construction, automotive and mechanical sectors, directly affecting welded pipe purchasing and production activity in 2012.
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23 November 2011
The prolonged failure to solve the sovereign debt problems besetting the euro has made distributors more reluctant than ever to re-stock limiting themselves to back-to-back buying for secure onward sales – but there are few (and small) end-user orders in the present market.
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27 October 2011
The low prices in southern Europe means that Turkish material is not viable.
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28 September 2011
The expected return of buyers to re-stock for fourth quarter requirements was upset by expectations of weaker final demand and concerns on financial stability.
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26 August 2011
EU mills are planning to increase prices in September, but this is largely dependent on gains in coil prices.
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21 July 2011
Italian prices have largely followed the weakness in HR coil and the latest offers for standard-sized S235 3mm thick ERW sections are now down to €640-650/tonne ex-works. Galvanized pipe is around €740-750/tonne ex-works.
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30 June 2011
The efforts undertaken by Italian mills to push up standard welded pipe prices at the end of May thus came to naught and they were instead forced to discount.
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27 May 2011
Inventory of most products are at relatively low levels as buying has been weak since March after the strong start to the year.
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29 April 2011
In central Europe, Polish and Czech prices are now around €675-700/tonne ex-works for S235 material – down around €30/tonne over the month.
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31 March 2011
Mills therefore have struggled to increase margins in the way that they hoped and have been willing to cut prices to around €720-740/tonne ex-works for S235 material in Italy compared to as much as €800/tonne that they were seeking late last month.
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28 February 2011
The buying that we noted last month has acted to extend lead times to around 8 weeks from most tubular mills, with precision pipe even further out. Lower-priced March material is therefore sold out.