The two overall drivers of pipe and tube consumption continue to diverge as we move throughout the first quarter of 2010. On the energy side, the Baker Hughes rig count continues to improve reaching 1,427 in the latest report on Friday, March 19th. This, despite the fact that we've seen significant "leakage" in natural gas prices over the course of the last several weeks. OCTG products continue to benefit from strong activity levels but we've not yet seen a corresponding pickup in line pipe activity. We are seeing strength in the energy component of other pipe and tube products, such as mechanical tubing, but that sector is too small a percentage of those products to make much of an impact.
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