OREANDA-NEWS. August 28, 2015. Chelpipe and RUSNANO have developed a joint project to build a plant to produce pipe connectors using nanostructured materials. The partners have set up a company called Eterno to implement the project in which Chelpipe has a stake of 50.1 percent and RUSNANO owns 49.9 percent.

Plans are underway to launch the new production by the end of 2015 at Chelpipe’s production site in Chelyabinsk, which will create more than 300 jobs. As of today, construction work on the new production building has been completed and equipment is being installed.

The plant will manufacture stamp-welded pipe joints, mainly, pipe bends to change pipeline direction as required and T-joints for pipeline branching, as well as pipe seal fittings and pipe adapters. The capacity of the new plant will be up to 10,000 tons of parts per year.

As of the end of 2014, the stamp-welded pipe joint market in Russia and the CIS amounted to 5.5 billion rubles and was expected to grow steadily with vertically-integrated oil and gas production companies, as well as pipeline project operators, including Gazprom and Transneft, being its key consumers.

The Chelpipe/RUSNANO joint venture will have unique technological advantages which will allow the company to meet world-level quality standards while ensuring competitive costs and prompt delivery. The highest possible performance of Eterno products will be guaranteed due to the use of innovative nanostructured welding and weld reinforcement materials. Besides, the new plant will make use of a good number of specifically designed production processes, such as:

  • 100 percent incoming chemical analysis inspection of sheets at the warehouse
  • automated submerged welding using nanoagents and multifunctional 24-hour operation welding systems
  • using multipurpose CNC production centers capable of machining more than 2,000 different types of parts
  • comprehensive heat treatment resulting in finished products with unique performance properties
  • automated X-ray weld joint inspection.

Lower production costs will also be achieved by implementation of an efficient production logistics system and a high level of operational planning due to the use of HYDRA, an automated production management system developed by MPDV (Germany).

The equipment for the new plant is supplied by world-leading manufacturers, including ESAB (Sweden), HAESLER (Switzerland), SKEM (South Korea), and LOI-Poland (Poland).

“By launching the project Chelpipe will have the opportunity to extend its product range and create synergism within the company, as the company will supply its own parts for pipeline mounting component production at the Chelyabinsk plant of pipe connection bends and take advantage of its corrosion treatment facilities. In the end, it will allow the group to participate in packaged supplies for pipeline projects in Russia and CIS, and target overseas markets in the future,” says Vitaly Sadykov, CEO of Rimera Group (part of Chelpipe group).

“The metal industry has a great potential for nanotechnology and effective investment in innovation. When your partner is one of the Russian metal industry leaders, you can be quite confident that the project will be successful and that the unique features of the new Chelpipe products will not only help reduce dependence on foreign suppliers, but also make Russian products more competitive in the global market,” says Andrey Gorkov, RUSNANO Managing Director for Investment.