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VSB Produces First Steel Pipe from Steelworks in Brazil
12/20/2010 - Vallourec & Sumitomo Tubos do Brasil Ltda (VSB) began a test operation at its integrated seamless pipe steelworks, successfully piercing its first billet recently. Following the completion of the rolling mill, upstream facilities including charcoal blast furnaces will begin operation in the second quarter of 2011.
Vallourec & Sumitomo Tubos do Brasil Ltda (VSB), a seamless pipe joint venture formed by Sumitomo Metal Industries, Sumitomo Corp., and Vallourec, began a test operation at its integrated seamless pipe steelworks, successfully piercing its first billet recently.
Following the completion of the rolling mill, upstream facilities including charcoal blast furnaces will begin operation in the second quarter of 2011. A full operation as an integrated blast furnace steelworks will then commence.
VSB plans to obtain approvals from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and its customers such as major oil companies and fully ramp up the steelworks by the first half of 2012 to meet growing demand for global energy development.
Production capacity will be 600,000 tonnes of seamless pipe per year and 1 million tonnes of crude steel per year.
