OREANDA-NEWS. Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation is pleased to announce that, NSSMC has reached an agreement with Vallourec S.A., an important strategic partner in the pipe and tube business, to enhance our strategic partnership through expansion of their existing business cooperation.

Expansion of the Business Cooperation with Vallourec Since more than 40 years ago, NSSMC and Vallourec have enjoyed the partnership for the VAM(r) premium connection, as well as operation of joint ventures in the U.S., Brazil, and Asian regions, and thereby strengthened individual businesses. NSSMC and Vallourec will significantly expand the business cooperation as described below; in particular for VAM(r), we will transform the current scope of collaboration into a more comprehensive partnership. This initiative would help enhance the synergy creation for each of NSSMC and Vallourec to individually expand profits even under the current severe market conditions driven by the low oil price levels.

Strengthening of the VAM(r) Premium Connection The newly expanded scope of collaboration for VAM(r) will include not only the R&D of connection technology, which is the existing scope of the current VAM(r) partnership, but also the acceleration of product development/industrialization, and customer services, and thereby form a comprehensive cooperation. Furthermore, NSSMC and Vallourec have agreed to transform the current periodic R&D meetings into a permanent organizational structure with a view to accelerating development of new products.

Increased resource commitment for test facilities and engineers, both of which are required for shortening the cycle of developing new products, are also envisaged to be implemented. In the field of oil tubular connection business, as customer's drilling activities take place in a more diversified environment, it is necessary to satisfy customers' needs by providing a wide variety of customized products and to provide various technical support when connecting pipes and utilizing them at drilling sites. 2 The expansion of partnership is expected to help enable NSSMC to efficiently and promptly address demands of individual customers worldwide, and to further improve customer satisfaction in the VAM(r) premium connection, thereby increasing NSSMC's profitability.