Gazprom’s orders spur domestic pipe industry growth

Prior to the meeting, Gazprom's delegation had looked at the pipe production facilities of the Vyksa Steel Works.

Taking part in the meeting were Vitaly Markelov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Oleg Aksyutin, Yaroslav Golko and Dmitry Lyugai, Member of the Gazprom Management Committee, heads and representatives from Gazprom's specialized structural units and a number of subsidiaries, the Pipe Producers Association, United Metallurgical Company OMK, Pipe Metallurgical Company TMK, Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant, Severstal, RUSNANO Fund for Infrastructure and Educational Programs, METACLAY.

Alexey Miller highlighted that major orders from Gazprom and efficient sci-tech cooperation between the Company and domestic pipe producers spurred the advancement and modernization of Russian pipe companies. This manifests itself not only in higher rates of production, but also in the development of new types of products unparalleled globally. Thus, 1,420 millimeter high-strength pipes with unique performances and designed for the operating pressure of 11.8 MPa – the world's record for onshore gas pipelines –were developed for the Bovanenkovo – Ukhta gas trunkline system. At that, the required strength was ensured by changing the steel properties, rather than by increasing the wall thickness thereby enabling to cut down costs. These pipes were made, in particular, at the Vyksa Steel Works.


Domestic pipe producers take part in Gazprom's new large-scale gas transmission projects, namely South Stream, Southern Corridor and Power of Siberia. They are also ready to supply pipes of higher strength capacity, suitable for the areas with seismic intensity 8 or above. In addition, some mills have already started to commercially apply domestically-produced materials for external anti-corrosion coating.

The meeting emphasized that Gazprom offered new challenges for Russian pipe producers; particularly they will have to introduce and maintain the production of the following types of pipes:

    threaded pipes for marine gas production;
    pipes intended for operation in hostile environment;
    pipes of extended cold resistance;
    pipes with highly tight threads;
    pipes with vacuum heat insulation.

At the end of the meeting, the domestic pipe producers were entrusted with further developing pipe production for Gazprom's needs.

South Stream is Gazprom's global infrastructure project aimed at constructing a gas pipeline with a capacity of 63 billion cubic meters across the Black Sea to Southern and Central Europe for the purpose of diversifying the natural gas export routes and eliminating transit risks.

South Stream's offshore section consists of four strings each longer than 930 kilometers, made up of 813 millimeter pipes with the wall thickness of 39 millimeters. The unparalleled pipes made of X65 steel designed for an extreme operating pressure of 28.45 MPa will be used during the offshore section construction.

Pipe supply contracts for the first string were awarded to EUROPIPE from Germany (50 per cent of the total amount), United Metallurgical Company – OMK (35 per cent) and Severstal (15 per cent) from Russia.

Pipes for the second string will be supplied by Marubeni-Itochu and Sumitomo consortium from Japan (40 per cent of the total amount), OMK (35 per cent) and Severstal (25 per cent).

The Southern Corridor gas pipeline system will cross eight constituent entities of the Russian Federation, enabling additional natural gas deliveries to central and southern regions of Russia as well as securing uninterrupted gas supplies to the South Stream gas pipeline.

Power of Siberia will become a unified gas transmission system for the Irkutsk and Yakutia gas production centers and convey gas from these centers to Russia's Far East and China.