Posted on 15 Jul 2019
US skelp prices appear to be reaching a floor, which should provide some stability to the threatened oil country tubular goods market, Kallanish hears from market sources.
A price push of $40/short ton on sheet base prices appears to be slowing the erosion in that arena, which is slowly but surely trickling down to downstream tube producers, says one Gulf Coast source.
“It looks like hot-rolled coil is tagging bottom,” he says. “Which is good for future price improvement. Other than that, things are very slow and mills are very hungry.”
He adds that some import countries-of-origin – notably Korea – are considering going on consignment. Improving market conditions, however, may discourage that manoeuvre.
“Nothing yet on that consignment front,” the source says. “It would surprise me if Korea pulled that trigger.”
Kallanish held representative product P110 domestic welded casing Friday at $1,175-1,200/st. All prices are ex-works, domestic mill.
