Plate mills (both "Reversing mills" or "Discrete plate mills") feel thattheir product should command a premium over HR coil. It incorporates more work and takes more time to produce than strip running out at top speed from a tandem (in line) set of stands on a hot strip line; the superior performance of plate depends on this extra working and rolling. Thiswork cannot be hurried. When demand is rising, such as when plate is needed for big oil and gas pipelines, infrastructure or large batches of heavy equipment, backlogs quickly build up. Usually the plate premium rises too. When supplies are short at the margin, pipe mills may use strip mill plate, or pipe-laying contractors may buy pipe ready-made (from Asia in general, and China in particular) and not order plate first and contract a mill to convert itto pipe. In this way competition may take place indirectly between discrete plate mills and strip plate mills, and may have the effect of narrowing the premium for discrete plate.
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