OREANDA-NEWS. May 19, 2009. TMK, one of the world's leading oil and gas pipe producers, announces today that it began supplying Lukoil with hydrogen-sulphide resistant casing and tubing pipe. This pipe grade was especially developed and produced to meet the needs of Lukoil’s drilling operations in the Russian Far North.

ТМК supplied 177.8 mm Tagmet 90 SS casing with 10.36 mm wall thickness, 244.48 mm Volzhsky 90 SS casing with 10.03 mm wall thickness and 73.02 mm Sinarsky C-90 tubing with wall thickness ranging from 5.51 to 7.01 mm. This first shipment of sour service tubulars amounted to 3,000 tonnes.

The new TMK sour grade range, designed for well environments containing hydrogen sulphide (H2S), was developed to further expand the Company’s high-end product offering as well as to replace tubular imports of this grade on the Russian market.

To obtain pipes that are resistant to sulphide stress cracking, TMK performs heat treatment operations which modify the mechanical characteristics of the pipes by altering the structure of the steel.

“TMK continues expanding its product range and strives to fully meet the Russian oil and gas companies’ requirements for value-added tubulars including those which are traditionally imported”, said Alexander Shiryaev, TMK CEO.