OREANDA-NEWS. OAO “TMK” (TMK), one of the world’s largest oil and gas pipe producers and the market leader of the Russian pipe industry, on October 11 announced its production results for the nine month period ended  September 30, 2007, the company's press service reported.

For the first 9 months of 2007, TMK shipped 2,369 thousand tonnes of steel pipes, a 6.3% increase compared to the first nine months of 2006. “Favourable dynamics in production volumes in the first nine months of the present year show the first results of our strategic programme aimed at increasing our volumes in the high margin seamless pipes segment. We managed to considerably increase shipments of seamless products, including shipments of high value-added pipes, in spite of a high load factor in production capacity.

Steady demand from the Russian oil and gas sector also contributed to this increase. Shipments of industrial seamless pipes grew as a result of an increase in production after the commissioning of a new rolling mill at TMK-Artrom. A small decrease in welded pipe shipments was caused by general market trends”, said company CEO Konstantin Semerikov.