MMK to Supply Metal for New Pipelines

A visiting meeting of Gazprom took place in Chelyabinsk today; the gas company executives met the representatives of Russia’s leading metallurgical enterprises and pipe manufacturers. The Director-General of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Boris Dubrovsky attended the meeting as well.

Those present at the discussion spoke about the cooperation of the strip and pipe manufacturers with Gazprom within the framework of Russia’s natural gas transportation system development program. For one, these Russian companies are expected to join Gazprom’s international projects like the development of Shtokmanovsky deposit.

Gazprom’s import-replacement program valid through the year 2013 means the company will be using large-diameter pipes produced at Russian pipe plants, including the pipes made of MMK’s rolled metal materials.

Now Head of Russian Government Vladimir Putin said in at United Russia’s recent interregional meeting dedicated to the strategy of Russia’s North-West development in 2011-2020 that an investment decision regarding the development of Shtokmanovsky deposit in the Barents Sea would be made before the end of the year.

It was decided from the start that the coastal part of the launch complex for the pipe-based natural gas supply of Shtokmanovsky deposit would be fully constructed by the Russian contractors, while the sheets for the main pipeline construction would be supplied by MMK, among others.

It was reported earlier that MMK’s Mill 5000, with its technologies that are unique to Russia at the moment, can manufacture pipe materials with increased strength grade for the OCTG production. The new mill’s unmatched characteristics make it possible to produce a wide range of plate iron goods. The mill has the world’s most powerful rolling mill with roll force of up to 12,000 tons and can employ a great variety of technological process schemes.

Plate Mill5000 that was launched in 2009 is mainly intended for the production of high quality pipe ingots for LDPs. The mill’s capacity is estimated at 1.5m tons of goods a year. The mill was constructed in cooperation with the globally recognized German machine-building concern SMS Demag, a company with a great experience in the field of heavy plate technologies development.

Last year, in order to get certified for the Shtokmanovsky deposit project, MMK hosted a delegation of companies involved in the project: Saipem, Samsung Heavy Industries, and Shtokman Development AG. The companies representatives looked into MMK’s technical capacity for making sheet and rolled section products that could be used for the Shtokmanovsky deposit project, including rolled products with strength grade up to 420 and thickness up to 50mm that could withstand extremely low temperatures of up to 600 degrees below Celsius.

This Magnitogorsk-based Mill5000 makes it possible to produce nearly all kinds of plate steel needed for LDPs that Gazprom requires,’ MMK reports.

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