Global niobium giant CBMM Brazil along with their representatives in Russia Aurohill Group in association with TSNIIchermet of Russia organized an international conference on “Commercial production, testing and practical application of X80/X90 Large Diameter Pipes” in Moscow on April 6th and April 7th 2011.

Over 100 participants attended the conference from key end users, manufacturers of steel pipes, steel plants, regulatory authorities and design and research institutes. A panel of internationally renowned eminent metallurgists presented the papers in the conference alongside papers from the Russian side.

The conference highlighted Russia’s position in the pipeline sector with over 4.2 million tonnes in the large diameter section from which 2.9 million tonnes was installed in the last five years.

It was also clear that the Russian steel mills and institutes have high technical competence in API X80/X90 grades. However, participants agreed that still there is scope of improvement and fine tuning in steel making and rolling practices in which CBMM, Brazil will continue to extend technical support from leading specialist in each field.

Russia and Italy are only two countries in the world, actively performing full scale burst testing of X80/X90 pipes, aiming to find new criteria and methods to evaluate reliability of high strength pipes.