CORRECTED - Spanish steel tube makers say no green shoots

(Corrects paragraph 9 to show lay offs were temporary)

MADRID, June 5 (Reuters) - Spanish steel tube makers have yet to perceive any signs of renewed order activity, dampening recent hopes for a recovery, executives from two Spanish companies said at the end of a two-day conference.

Both companies specialise in seamless tubes and rely heavily on the oil sector, where investments have slowed and orders have been cancelled or delayed due to the oil price decline and the global economic crisis.

Investors and analysts have said expectations on equity markets of "green shoots" of global economic recovery have driven oil prices higher and boosted hopes for renewed activity in the oil services sector.

"We don't like to talk about green shoots because the truth is we don't see very many," Tubos Reunidos' financial director Luis Pomposo Gaztelu told a conference at Madrid's stock exchange.

"(Sector) demand was down 50 percent in February, something we thought would have been impossible, and now it's down between 50 and 60 percent," Pomposo said.

Tubacex' managing director said there were no signs of fresh demand to replace orders that will be delivered in September.

"The second quarter will be difficult and to talk about the second half would be completely adventurous for us right now," Guillermo Ruiz-Longarte from Tubacex said.

"Until we see our order book going up, there aren't green shoots or black shoots or shoots of any colour," he added.

Both companies posted heavy declines in sales and earnings in the first quarter and announced plans for temporary lay offs.

Their stock price has fallen about 60 percent over the past year, but more recently has tracked oil prices higher.

By 1127 GMT, Tubacex was trading up 0.36 percent at 2.77 euros, while Tubos Reunidos rose 2.22 percent to 2.30 euros.

(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski; Editing by David Cowell)