Tenaris remains cautious about the recovery in offshore drilling activity despite its large shipment in the first quarter to Egypt’s Zohr gas field.

The pipemaker’s Middle East & Africa segment sales surged 98% on-year and 57% on-quarter in Q1 to $456 million, boosted by deliveries of around 120,000 tonnes of pipe to Zohr. The second batch of pipe for Zohr is scheduled for delivery in Q4.

During a conference call monitored by Kallanish, Tenaris Eastern Hemisphere area manager Gabriel Podskubka was asked if there are any further opportunities like Zohr on the horizon. He answered: “In the rest of the offshore market the situation is still a bit uncertain… The offshore environment is recovering very gradually. We still don’t see the majors sanctioning a lot of new projects, which require the high capex greenfield projects – they are still focusing on tie-backs and smaller near-field developments which require less of an infrastructure build-up.”

“We have a good second pipeline in the backlog (for Zohr) but we are a bit cautious about the offshore recovery,” he concluded.

In February Tenaris said the Middle East will see growth in OCTG demand in 2018, while regional buyers’ focus on working capital efficiency means they are sourcing product required only for immediate consumption (see Kallanish 26 February).