Russian steel pipe maker Pervouralsk Novotrubny Pipe Works will launch a $500 millionn steel plant in the first quarter of 2009 that will allow it to cover some of its raw material needs, the company said. Pervouralsk Novotrubny, part of the ChTPZ Group, said in a statement the new plant would have capacity to produce 950,000 tonnes a year of steel billets for the manufacture of seamless pipes.
Germany's SMS Demag AG is supplying the equipment. "The new production will allow the company to close old, environmentally unfriendly open-hearth furnaces," Pervouralsk Novotrubny said in the statement. ChTPZ is Russia's second-largest supplier of steel pipes used in the oil and gas sector, behind market leader TMK. It accounted for about 22 percent of Russian steel pipe shipments last year.
The company also buys semi-finished steel from other Russian mills, including Metalloinvest's Urals Steel plant and Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, ChTPZ spokeswoman Evelina Grigoryeva said. She declined to say how much of the company's needs would be covered by the new plant.
ChTPZ, which also controls the Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant, shipped 867,800 tonnes of pipe products in the first half of 2008, down 10 per cent from a year earlier. The Chelyabinsk plant shipped 463,400 tonnes and Pervouralsk Novotrubny, located in the Urals region of Sverdlovsk, shipped 404,400 tonnes. ChTPZ, which also includes Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant, has annual turnover of around $4 billion.
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