December 04, 2008

Tenaris strengthens commercial ties with OMV

Tenaris announced that the Austrian oil company OMV has a partnership agreement with Tenaris covering the supply of the majority of its OCTG requirements worldwide.

Mr Wolfgang Ringhofer head of procurement and contracting for OMV Exploration & Production said that “It was the first agreement of this type signed by OMV E&P and it has been very successful from the start. In order to maintain the on time delivery of casing and tubing pipes, it is important to hold periodic meetings to review OMV E&P's global OCTG demand as Tenaris currently covers almost 90% of our OCTG demand.”

Mr Ringhofer said that “For our global supply we evaluated different providers, but finally we chose Tenaris for its high quality production processes, good terms and conditions, compliance with our specific needs, an effective delivery system, competitive prices and capability to provide the timely delivery of constant quality and timely products and services for all our operations worldwide.”

In the current standardization effort carried out by OMV E&P, the TenarisBlue® premium connection has been chosen as its preferred premium connection and TenarisBlue® DopelessTM, the dope free version, is being tested in some of OMV E&P's most environmentally sensitive operations, such as those in Austria and New Zealand. Furthermore, OMV's acquisition of a controlling share of Romanian oil company Petrom took place at almost the same time as Tenaris's integration of the Romanian pipe mill Silcotub, creating the opportunity for further business opportunities.

Since 2004 Tenaris has maintained this long term agreement with OMV. Over the years, the agreement has developed to include additional products for OCTG applications, such as sucker rods and a variety of on site services, such as running assistance.