Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Nov. 14
By Demir Azizov - Trend:
JSC Uzbek Metallurgical Plant (JSC Uzmetcombinat in Bekabad, Tashkent region) is planning to start construction of a production of seamless 40-426 mm hot-deformed steel pipes with a wall thickness up to 25 mm for the oil and gas industry, a representative of the company told Trend on Nov.14.
As reported, a feasibility study worth $90 million and with design capacity of 30,000 tons of pipe per year should have been submitted to the government for approval by late January 2013.
The government was expected to approve the project feasibility study and funding during the first half of 2013.
As a result of examination of the project feasibility study, it was determined that the original project parameters will not be able to ensure its profitability. On account of this, a new feasibility study was developed and implementation of the project was scheduled to begin in late 2014, a company representative said.
According to the source, an updated version of the project is estimated at $240 million and the minimum production capacity at 100,000 tons per year. The commissioning of the production is planned for 2016.
Uzbek-Russian-American joint venture Tashkent Pipe Plant is currently producing steel-welded tubes of various diameters for local engineering companies. Starting in 2000, production increased by more than 17 times from four to more than 70,000 tons.
As reported earlier, prior to 2015, the joint venture intends to implement two projects to expand production of large diameter, steel-welded pipes with diameters from 325 mm to 720 mm and APL-SP SL pipes standard with diameters from 820 mm to 1620 mm.
The total design capacity of the two projects, valued at $9 million (7.4 million and 1.5 million respectively), is 24,000 tons of pipe annually. Funding of the projects will be provided by the company founders.
Uzmetkombinat is the only ferrous metallurgy factory in Central Asia working with scrap metal. It was commissioned in 1956 and accounts for 90 percent of steel products in the country. Previously, it recycled scrap metal delivered from all republics of Central Asia. Currently, due to lower scrap supply, the company is not operating at full capacity.
In 2012, the plant increased steel production by 0.4 percent to 736,300 tons compared to 2011, with metal product service leases up 0.1 per cent to 710,500 tons.