THE OCTG SITUATION ROOM

’Tis the season, the time when we sift through stacks of data in order to provide some grist for the mill. Faced with lingering trade-related issues, global economic concerns and the general uncertainty heading into an election year there’s no sugarcoating the situation. Be that as it may, we herewith aim to separate the wheat from the chaff with the intention of serving you well into 2020. We’ll commence our thesis by crossing off “feast or famine” from the list of possible

As the class of “2020” reconvenes at school this month we too are putting on our thinking caps and dusting off our previous 2019 forecasts to see if they stood the test of time. Reviewing the past couple months, it’s almost as if fall descended on the oil patch in June when we detected a chill in the air during our midyear market conversations. Sadly, our below-average updated annual projections now reflect the cooling drilling activity. “Old school” conventional thinking wou

The results of our exclusive 2Q19 Quarterly OCTG Inventory Yard Survey could be viewed as a beacon of hope for those who expressed trepidation about the outcome in our midyear market conversations last month. Turns out parties with an ear to the ground controlled inventories extremely effectively and managed to stem the tide from Q1 that could have easily rocked the boat this quarter. While most of you know the ropes by now we’ll remind everyone that we host our exclusive qua

Each year in June we take the temperature of the oil patch, speaking with people from every walk of the supply chain to get a sense of the market from their perspective. This exercise inevitably yields valuable and colorful commentary on the present state of affairs. Last year could have been summed up in “232” words as discussions were almost entirely variables on the theme of the investigation. In reviewing the results of this year’s midyear market calls, one phrase best ca

What began as a month of snooze abruptly filled with breaking news. So we decided to investigate some of the headlines of the day in our May Report. On Friday, May 17 there was the announcement of an “apparent” settlement in the steel tariff portion of the new NAFTA (the USMCA). The day before, on May 16, we learned that tariffs on Turkish steel were being halved. And then, on May 20, just as we were going to press came the news of the final antidumping (AD) decision for the

While visual evidence of a massive Black Hole made headlines recently, we’re happy to report you won’t find any black holes in OCTG inventory metrics due to our exclusive quarterly Inventory Yard Surveys. This breakthrough is credited to our publication’s founder, Duane Murphy, who decided 33 years ago it was high time to resolve this gap and went about the laborious task of doing exactly that. The gravity of his work cannot be underestimated especially when you consider our

H-Town confirmed it knows the ropes as it played host to a Texas-sized A-list this month for the RodeoHouston Livestock show and the 38th annual CERAWeek where revelry met with a “New World of Rivalries”; the theme for the preeminent confab. Meanwhile, we put our own unbridled energy into rounding up all the stats necessary to prepare our yearly “state of the industry” Report: a comprehensive review of the metrics that matter in OCTG for the past three years. Typically, this

If it’s February it must be our “Annual State of the Industry Report.” But alas, that isn’t the ‘Situation’ this month as the shutdown got the better of anyone who relies on the government for stats. Thus, we’ve postponed our Annual Report until March when the December 2018 import/export data points will be made available, enabling us to provide a thorough examination of the trends that defined the OCTG landscape over the past three years. This month we’ll look at some curren

The new year got underway with a blustery winter wallop: WTI prices struggling to reach $50/bbl coupled with a government ‘meltdown.’ We trust this isn’t the writing on the wall for 2019, so rather than wallow in woe we’ll kick things off with the results of our exclusive 4Q18 OCTG Inventory Yard Survey that may help some put a little spring in their step. Published every quarter, our OCTG Inventory Yard Survey is the only one of its kind in the world. It is designed to asses

’Tis the season and it’s tradition for us to start it by ringing in our forecast of all things OCTG for 2019. As we began checking off our list of oilfield indicators in early November it appeared that our projections, starting with WTI, would be of good cheer. We were midway through our predictions when the White House threw in a lump of coal—a reprieve from Iran sanctions for eight countries—roiling oil markets on concerns of oversupply and potentially dashing our merry and

"It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all," ~Henri Poincare, author of “The Foundations of Science.” With a greater line of sight to the year-end and a better grip on the impact of the 232 we thought it would prove prescient to revisit our thinking on OCTG pricing for Q4 and into 2019 as the E&P forecasting season is upon us. The results of this month’s distributor spot market pricing survey made it clear that the 232 won’t add near as muc

Drum roll, please…the results of our exclusive quarterly OCTG inventory yard survey is here. The objective of this endeavor is always the same: to measure demand for upstream pipe throughout the supply chain across the lower 48. The question is, did 2Q18 end on a high note or were we left singing the blues? The answer is somewhat involved. A portion of our analysis that was published in this month’s Report follows. The key point is inventories ended higher than anticipated bu

As we prepare for our publication’s annual ‘state of the industry’ address every February we often find clues in past years’ metrics and this year is no different. With questions looming about the Section 232, 2018 E&P budgets, L48 hydrocarbon production and oil at $60/bbl…will we find strength in numbers this year or are we looking at a catch-22? The year-end OCTG stats found in our table on page 6 zero in on the trends that defined the OCTG market over the past three years.

As we zoom past 2017 it’s time to bring focus to the current OCTG inventory situation. 4Q17 OCTG inventory results are best framed as a tale of two ‘quarters.’ There is simply no way to provide a clear snapshot of the outcome without looking back to the second quarter of 2017 and reminding our readers that we make any necessary adjustments to our inventory yard results once a year in January in order to accommodate new OCTG yards that come onboard. With that said, five new OC

Another quarter wrapped; time to zoom in on the results of The OCTG Situation Report’s exclusive OCTG inventory yard survey. First, we want to give props to the cast and crew who work behind the scenes to make this production possible each quarter. Much credit goes to the numerous supply chain professionals who inventory pipe at truck terminals, mills, processors and inspection yards throughout the lower 48 every three months. Q3 could easily be titled, “Back to the Future,”

Weather news has taken the US by storm for the past couple weeks starting with Hurricane Harvey that hit home for so many in the oil patch. While the plight of the people in its path was the first concern, many in the OFS supply chain wondered how the storm might trickle down to tubular goods. After all, the fate of OCTG this year has been balanced on a fragile ecosystem making another potential threat especially distressing. The two charts below lend further credence to this

As we close the chapter on another exclusive quarterly inventory survey, we’re grateful to the hundreds of OCTG yards throughout the supply