Thailand’s seamless steel pipe market, as China’s main export destination, still relies on imports

Seamless steel pipes: From the perspective of product types, there are currently a variety of seamless steel pipes on the market, which can be divided into hot rolled seamless pipes, cold rolled seamless pipes, extruded seamless pipes and other product types based on production methods; It can also be subdivided into carbon steel seamless pipes, alloy steel seamless pipes, stainless steel seamless pipes and other product types based on the type of material; It can also be subdivided into two categories based on the cross-sectional shape: circular seamless pipes and irregular seamless pipes.

The application range of seamless steel pipes is wide, involving multiple industries such as oil transportation, natural gas transportation, chemical industry, metallurgy, power, construction, and automotive. In recent years, with the continuous expansion of downstream application industries, the global seamless steel pipe market has developed rapidly, and the market size has also shown a clear growth trend; Among them, Asia represented by China, Europe represented by Germany, and North America represented by the United States are the main revenue markets for the global seamless steel pipe industry.

Taking Thailand as an example, it is the second largest economy in Southeast Asia, and there are obvious signs of domestic economic recovery in the post pandemic period. According to data released by the National Economic and Social Development Commission (NESDC) of Thailand, in 2022, the total GDP of Thailand reached 17.37 trillion Thai baht (approximately 495.2 billion US dollars), a year-on-year increase of 2.6%, and the per capita GDP reached 248600 Thai baht (approximately 7089.7 US dollars). The continuous development of the market economy and the increasing income level of residents have also provided strong impetus for the development of industries such as chemical, metallurgical, power, construction, and automotive in Thailand, thereby releasing the market’s demand for materials such as seamless steel pipes.

However, from a supply perspective, due to the late start of the market, the production capacity of seamless steel pipes by local Thai enterprises is still at a relatively low level, making it difficult to meet the growing application demand in China. In this context, the Thai market has increased its import scale of overseas seamless steel pipes.

While China is the world’s largest seamless steel pipe supply market, and Thailand is also a neighboring country of China’s “the Belt and Road” policy. China’s seamless steel pipe exports to Thailand on a large scale. According to data released by the General Administration of Customs of China, in the first three quarters of 2022, the number of seamless steel pipes exported from China to Thailand was 225000 tons, an increase of 87.9% compared to the same period last year. The export amount was 313 million US dollars, an increase of 120.4% compared to the same period last year. Thailand has thus become the second largest export destination for seamless steel pipes in China.

Linzhou Fengbao Pipe Industry Co., Ltd., as a leading seamless steel pipe manufacturer in China, has always focused on the development and sales of the Thai market. Currently, our company has been the long-term supplier of PTTEP. We hope that our products can gain more favor and use from Thai customers!