Interfax reported that The Metinvest holding's Khartsyzsk Pipe Mill from Ukraine's Donetsk region saw large diameter pipe output soar tentatively 2.3 fold YoY in January to June to 302,600 tonnes.

Its June output was 43,200 tonnes.

Output on a monthly basis was low for much of the first half of 2008, when the plant sold pipes in spot deals. It rose to 52,700 tonnes in December, from 21,000 tonnes in June. Outputs of large diameter pipes in 2008 as a whole fell 23.8% to 387,746 tonnes including 347,450 tonnes with anti-corrosive down by 24.3%.

Khartsyzsk, one of the FSU's biggest producers of straight-seam pipeline tubes 478 millimeters to 1420 millimeters in diameter with anti-corrosive, has the capacity to produce 1.6 million tonnes of pipes per year.

(Sourced from Interfax)