OREANDA-NEWS. Piercing the highly competitive market in the Middle East, Essar Steel India today announced that it has become an approved vendor for Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd., for supply of high grade pipes and plates that can withstand risk of corrosion from sour gas.

Essar Steel today announced that it has received approval from GASCO for supply of plates and pipes up to API 5L Gr. X65 sour service, making it the biggest milestone for the company in the Middle East till date. This has opened up the opportunity for securing orders from GASCO.

With this, Essar Steel joins the ranks of few global steel giants and is the only Indian company to have received such an approval.

The approval would cement Essar Steel’s position further in the highly demanding global oil and natural gas industry. The company had in recent times got approvals from among others, American Petroleum Institute (API) certification, approvals from Shell Global, Eni, Socar, Occidental-Qatar, Ecopetrol, Pacific Rubiales, Fluor and Kvaerner.

”Receiving this approval is a matter of pride for us and is a reflection of Essar Steel’s integrated capability to produce world-class pipes in order to cater to the wide range of pipe products manufactured through various routes. The pipe mill has full-fledged facilities for inspection and testing to ensure production of high quality pipes including sour service. We aim to become the preferred supplier of quality steel pipes to all our domestic and global customers,” said recently appointed CEO - Pipe Mill, Mr H S Bedi.

Mr Bedi, an industry veteran with over 50 years of experience in pipe business, took charge as CEO of pipe mill as part of the strategy to augment pipe business as a specialized vertical in the competitive steel market.

Essar Steel’s pipe mill located at Hazira has the capability to manufacture 6,00,000 tonnes of line pipes comprising 2,75,000 mt per annum of API-grade Helical Submerged Arc Welding (HSAW) line pipes, ranging from diameters 16” to 110”, thicknesses 6.4mm to 25.4mm in grades through and up to X-80 and 3,25,000 mt per annum of API-grade Longitudinal Submerged Arc Welding (LSAW) line pipes, ranging from diameters 16” to 60”, thicknesses 6.4mm to 65mm in grades through and up to X-80.

The facility is an amalgamation of best-in-class technologies including tube mill, welding technology, and inspection technology and is fully automated with the least manpower requirement with respect to the prevailing industry norms. It is supported by a coating plant in the same location.