Due to sluggish demand and fierce price cuts, steel pipe in South Korea market was under poor condition, and steel mills estimated to face a big loss in the fourth quarter.

At present, the offer for structural pipe was remained flat week-on-week, and the distribution price has fallen by 1-2% month-on-month. Chinese export offer dropped for hot-rolled steel and unstable supply of domestic raw material have affected South Korean steel pipe market mostly.

If Chinese hot-rolled price continued to decline, and the price of steel pipe will be hardly raised. On the other hand, POSCO, Hyundai Steel and other hot-rolled suppliers, year-end plant maintenance and strike impact will keep the supply tightly.

Hot-rolled steel imported from Japan was also unstable. Japanese blast furnace shutdown also affected 400,000 tons capacity. According to data, in October South Korea imported only 85,000 tons of hot-rolled steel from China, dropping half year-on-year.

Recently, Chinese offer for hot-rolled continued to fall, but transaction volume has increased slightly. However, it was supposed that domestic mills' capacity and import volume were still not enough to meet the demand in December, and South Korean steel pipe plants should be suffered from shortage supply and face fierce procurement competition.