Baosteel the First Domestic Enterprise Successful in X120 Trial Production

X120 pipeline steel, currently of the highest strength grade of the world, was successfully turned out in trial production at Baosteel. The first batch of the product was delivered to the pipe mill a few days ago. Thus, Baosteel has become the fourth of world and the first of China who succeeded in X120 pipeline steel trial production.

With the constant growth of natural gas consumption in recent years, the developing speed of gas pipelines has surpassed that of the liquid lines like petroleum pipelines. As most natural gas fields are centralized in such remote locations as desert, tundra in polar region and ocean, higher requirements on reliability and economical efficiency are posed on the pipelines.

When the strength of pipeline steel is higher, the wall thickness and diameter can be reduced accordingly under the condition of without affecting safety transportation of gas, hence saving steel used for long distance gas pipeline significantly, as well as bringing down the general cost involving construction cost and welding materials, etc.

Therefore, modern pipeline steel is developing toward super high strength. X120 is the highest grade pipeline steel up till now. At present time, in the international world, only NSC and Sumitomo of Japan and Europipe have actually produced such product. In 2004, the first X120 pipeline demonstration section of the world was constructed in the tundra -30? in Canada using the X120 tubing manufactured by NSC.

According to the latest development trend of international natural gas pipeline and metallurgic technology, Baosteel started the development and trial manufacture of pipeline steel of X series early 1990s. Currently Baosteel has the capacity of producing a complete series of pipeline steel plates for welded pipelines from low end to high end.

Based on the guiding concept of advanced R&D, Baosteel started the preliminary R&D of X120 pipeline steel in 2005. In November 2006, Baosteel successfully turned out high strength high tenacity X120 pipeline steel plate at 5m Heavy Plate Mill, which was put into operation only over a year ago. The ex-works inspection report showed that the first batch of trial-produced X120 pipeline steel represented high level in no matter the composition control, internal structure or plate shape accuracy, with major product performance indices reaching the level of NSC's steel used in the demonstration section in Canada.

This is Baosteel's another leap in pipeline steel manufacturing technology and shall further intensify the international competitive power of Baosteel's pipeline steel.