Prices to decrease slower than feedstock cost

摘要

Ukrainian pipe plants failed to increase prices in April amid tight com-petition and too slow recovery of demand.As export markets for flat steel slowed down in April, CIS-origin HRCprices dropped by $15-20/t to $495-500/t FOB Black Sea amid weakdemand in the key consuming regions. This has entailed the relatedadjustment of domestic prices for May-production coils supplied to pipeplants since in April they were at least by $30-35/t higher than exportquotations against a normal gap of $20/t. Export prices for UkrainianHRC will drop by another $20-25/t in May and by some $5-10/t in June-July. As a result, welded pipe production cost will decrease to bring pipeprices down over the forecast period.