The Russian steel producer Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) has announced that in 2009 its deliveries of steel products to pipe sector amounted to 1.6 million mt, almost at the same level as in 2008. Meanwhile, the share of tubular billets in MMK's total deliveries to the Russian domestic market went up from 26 percent to 36 percent.
MMK's main consumers from the pipe sector are TMK's subsidiaries Seversky Tube Works, Volzhshky Pipe Plant and Taganrog Metallurgical Works, OMK's subsidiary Vyksa Steel Works, and ChTPZ's Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant. With some of these companies, MMK has already signed long-term cooperation agreements, regarding not only product supplies, but also joint efforts to implement advanced technologies and the development of new types of products, including the supply of MMK's steel products for the production of large diameter pipes.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, in late July 2009 MMK commissioned its new plate rolling mill 5000 with an annual capacity of 1.5 million mt of plates, designed primarily for the production of high quality tubular products. In 2009, the shipment of plates produced at MMK's mill 5000 amounted to 159,000 mt.