Hengyang Valin Steel Tube Co., Ltd., P.R. China, has started to produce seamless tubes in the newly built seamless tube plant supplied by SMS Meer GmbH, Germany.

The 13 3/8-inch MPM seamless tube plant will produce 500,000 tonnes of seamless tubes per year in a diameter range between 133 and 340 mm. All the mills involved in the forming process, including the cone-type piercer, MPM mandrel mill and sizing mill, were developed and manufactured by SMS Meer.

SMS Demag’s scope of supplies and services also included engineering for the ancillary facilities and the supervision of erection and commissioning.

The new plant features a cone-type piercer for piercing the billets with horizontally arranged, driven Diescher discs. The five-stand MPM mandrel mill will serve as the elongator, with hydraulically adjustable rolls, retained mandrel bar and downline extracting mill. The facility also includes a twelve-stand sizing mill with individual roll drive; quality assurance system with two Lasus^® wall thickness measuring systems; and a Carta^® technology system for direct data transfer and communication between the individual mills.

SMS Meer GmbH forms part of the Tube, Long Product and Forging Technology Business Area of the SMS group. SMS GmbH is the holding for a group of companies internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering relating to the processing of steel, non-ferrous metals and plastics. The group is divided into the Business Areas of Metallurgical Plant and Rolling Mill Technology, Tube, Long Product and Forging Technology and Plastics Technology. In the year 2004 some 9,500 employees worldwide generated a turnover of about EUR 2.20 billion.