Germany-based plantmaker SMS Group has announced that Austrian steelmaker voestalpine AG’s subsidiary voestalpine Tubulars GmbH & Co KG based in Kindberg-Aumühl, Styria, Austria, has successfully commissioned a new heat treatment line and a hot tube straightening machine supplied by SMS. The line is designed for seamless tubes with outside diameters ranging between 60.3 mm and 273.0 mm.
SMS stated that, with this new line, voestalpine is strengthening its market position as a supplier of seamless pipes for oil and gas exploration. This equipment allows voestalpine Tubulars to perform various different heat treatments such as quenching, tempering, and normalizing in one single line. The heat treatment line can now handle tubes with wall thicknesses of up to 25 millimeters. The line is designed to be expanded by an additional quenching unit at a later stage in order to process tubes with wall thicknesses greater than 30 mm.