Seamless pipes, decent start of 2024. Luigi Cuzzolin’s intervention at the webinar on April 9th

On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, our CEO Luigi Cuzzolin participated in MERCATO & DINTORNI, the Siderweb event that monthly provides an overview of the steel market situation, to discuss the market trends in the first part of 2024.

Below is an excerpt from the Siderweb article and the video of our CEO’s intervention.

Seamless pipes: worries over US market stoppage

Unlike other sectors, for Cuzzolin, the seamless pipe market at the beginning of 2024 had ‘a fairly decent start’, probably due to a restocking phase of material related to the long months of only sales in the previous year. A restocking that also saw a slight increase in quotations.
“After these increases we are trying to consolidate the new prices in April and May in order to avoid uncontrolled descents that would create problems for the entire supply chain.

In particular, it would be the distribution side that would suffer, since it would have at home material acquired with prices well above current market levels, also in the face of lower demand than expected, conditioned by the general regime of uncertainty.

On the other hand, it is difficult to make forecasts for the second half of the year for the CEO of Pipex, who nevertheless offered a detailed overview of the user sectors.

“From our observatory we have seen a sluggish construction sector, with hopes of a recovery in the second half of the year; a plausible figure is in the region of +0.5% +0.6%. Slightly better is the mechanical engineering sector with expectations of +0.8%. A -4% is assumed in automotive, but it could be even more negative. On pipes I would say +0.6% or +1% depending on how the international situation evolves as well”.

Particular attention was paid to the US oil & gas market, which, after performing very well in 2023, was pinned down in March, perhaps also due to the entry into the presidential election campaign in November.

An Achilles heel of the European market remains imports, with China making a strong comeback in recent months, especially on prices, to the point that European pipe producers have requested EU anti-dumping action’.

Davide Lorenzini

We thank Siderweb for their kind permission.

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