Russia’s United Metallurgical Company (OMK) is seeking to sell or send to Russia the capacities of the Texas-based subsidiary OMK Tube and is in talks with South Korea’s SeAH Steel as a potential investor.
The negotiations are not exclusive but other contenders for the asset have not been disclosed.
OMK bought Tubular Solutions, a firm making finishing coatings of tubes, in 2011 and built the OMK Tube plant, with a capacity of 200,000 tons of plain tubes a year, next to it. The hopes of the company, connected with oil and gas market growth, faded, and the plant was loaded by only about 25% of the capacity and ended up halting in late 2015.
Investments in the plant amounted to about $100 million until 2015. (Prime/Ukrainian metal)