POSCO, South Korea's largest steelmaker and the world's fourth-largest steelmaker, has broken ground at its new joint venture pipe plant in Pittsburg, California.
The plant, called United Spiral Pipe LLC and co-owned by US Steel and South Korean pipe maker SeAH Steel, will produce 270,000 mt of API-certified pipe annually, which will mainly be used in pipelines for transportation of natural gas and petroleum in the US and Canadian markets.
The US$129 million project will be 35 percent owned by POSCO, 35 percent owned by US Steel, and 30 percent owned by SeAH, with US Steel and POSCO evenly supplying the hot rolled coils used in the plant's pipe production.
Construction of the plant is expected to be completed by April 2009.