South Korea's steel giant POSCO has broken ground to build a $129 million plant to produce pipes in California, the company said March 2. The USP -- jointly invested by POSCO, US Steel and South Korea's SeAh Steel -- will annually produce up to 270,000 tons of pipes for petroleum, it said.
POSCO, the world's fourth largest steel maker, and US Steel own a 35% stake in the new factory -- to be completed in Pittsburgh, California, by April 2009 -- it said, adding the remaining 30% goes to SeAH.
The plant will produce the American Petroleum Institute-certified steel pipes for which demand is growing in the U.S. and Canadian markets, it added.
North America accounts for more than 15% of the global demand for petroleum pipes, annually importing over a million tons of large-caliber ones, POSCO said.
POSCO and US Steel launched a joint venture, UPI, in Pittsburgh, California, in 1986 to produce cold-rolled and galvanized steel.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2008
