OREANDA-NEWS. January 21, 2010. Mr. Dmitry Pumpyansky paid a business visit to MMK on January 18, 2010. MMK and TMK extend their partnership in agreement with the Memorandum on strategic cooperation till 2015 which was signed on February 08, 2007.

Mr. Pumpyansky visited new production facilities of MMK – continuous slab casting machine (CSCM №6) which was commissioned on December 30, 2009 and Mill 5000.

During the meeting, Mr. Rashnikov and Mr. Pumpyansky discussed the results of cooperation in the last few years.

TMK is one of the largest customers of MMK, accounting for more than 40% of the overall sales of MMK to pipe-makers in 2009.

The volume of MMK shipments to TMK grew by 9% in 2009 y-o-y to amount to 648 thousand tonnes. This amount includes 69 thousand tonnes of plates produced at Mill 5000 which was commissioned at MMK in July 2009.

Further cooperation was also discussed during the meeting, including collaboration with regards to the Mill 5000 products. In particular, the parties signed a supplementary agreement to the Memorandum setting forth coordinated actions of MMK and TMK to take part in the projects of Gazprom and Transneft on construction of new oil and gas pipelines.

MMK has historically been focusing on production of steel products for the pipe industry. Pipe producing companies account for the largest share of MMK domestic sales. Their share in the overall shipments to the Russian market amounted to 36% in 2009, up from 28% in 2008.