Steel tubing prices have begun to slide
Price-hike proposals withdrawn, buyers report
Tom Stundza -- Purchasing, 10/30/2009 10:59:18 AM
Price increases flopped for steel tubing products in October--in fact, they slipped--as prices of the feedstock hot-rolled sheet plateaued at September levels and tube purchasing by original equipment manufacturers declined, according to buyers.
Market sources say the proposed increase of $50/ton for structural tube has been rescinded by tubing mills in the South and Midwest. The October market price reported to Purchasing.com is $634/ton, down a smidge from a $638 average in September-and well below the $720 list price for hollow structural sections.
The benchmark product, mechanical tube, dropped to $750/ton in October from $785 the in August and September-and well below the $1,049 posted in January. Also, pressure tube this month dropped to $965/ton from $1,050 in September.
"There's a tremendous amount of inventory on the ground at Midwest mills and no difficulty finding enough floor stock to fill a rail car with standard sizes," a buyer in the Pacific Northwest tells AMM.com, referring to shipments of 90 to 100 tons.
Meanwhile, market prices for oil country tubular goods (OCTG) continue to decline in what is being described as a low-demand, high-inventory atmosphere in the energy exploration and development marketplace.
OCTG prices averaged $1,575 per ton in October, down from $1,604 the previous month and 51% below the $3,220 in September of last year, according to a monthly pricing report by Pipe Logix, an affiliate of energy consultancy Spears & Associates Inc., which tracks market prices.
Welded OCTG prices averaged $1,382 in October, down from $1,425 in September, while seamless product averaged $1,768, down from $1,783, according to news reports quoting Kurt Minnich, manager of Pipe Logix.
See earlier steel tubing story: PTC Alliance files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy revamp
OCTG prices continue to decline
08/30/2009OCTG Prices Decline
03/11/2009OCTG Prices Still Sliding
09/16/2009Steel tubing prices starting to slide
05/30/2005
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