API steel pipe belongs to the line pipe of American oil standard. API oil line pipe is to extract oil, steam, water on the ground and they are transported to oil and gas industry enterprises through the line pipe. Line pipe contains seamless pipe and welded steel pipe whose end includes flat end, threaded end and socket end. In view of the API steel pipe production cost, its cost pressure has been eased because market prices of the steel raw materials such as iron ore and coke have swung back. Recently, the domestic ore market prices have been down overall. Imported ore prices dropped faster. Coke and coal prices continued to fall. Pig iron and scrap steel prices fluctuated a little. And ordinary alloy prices fell in stability.

 

The domestic iron ore prices fell again by 20-70 yuan/ton this week, and port spot ore prices fell by 35-40 yuan/ton. Coking coal prices continued to drop by 30 to 60 yuan/ton. Scrap steel prices declined by 20-50 yuan/ton. The steel raw material market prices continued to go down. Moreover, the production cost of steel declined all the time. Take steel rebar production costs as an example, if the production capacity of steel plant is more than 10 million tons, the corresponding rebar production costs are lower over 60 yuan/ton than that of last week. If the production capacity of steel plant is less than 5 million tons, rebar production costs go down by 55 yuan/ton.

 

Steel raw material prices continuously decline, while the production cost of steel pressure eases. Some steel mills lowered prices for construction steel about 50 yuan/ton in general in order to accelerate the process of destocking. Several mills’ decreasing amplitude reached 100 yuan/ton. Therefore, the rigid cost can not all the time support strongly the rise of steel prices. These auxiliary factors may also affect API steel pipes export.