The Central Asia – China (CAC) gas pipeline will require some 800,000 tons of pipes to complete the construction of its lines four and five, which are not named yet. According to Vladimir Markin, the head of Russia’s United Metallurgical Company (OMK), the construction of CAC-4 and CAC-5 will begin in the first quarter of 2014 and will require about 800,000 tons of pipes. The pipelines will run through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan.

Earlier this year, OMK supplied 115,000 tons of large steel pipes for the project’s CAC-3 line, which allowed increasing the throughput of the pipeline from Kazakhstan to China. The thickness of the pipes was 17.5 mm (about 0.68 in.) with a diameter of nearly four feet (1,220 mm). OMK’s Vyksa Steel Works in the Nizhny Novgorod region manufactured the pipes from L555M/X80M steel with a layer of coating on the inside and outside to prevent corrosion. The pipes were made from large steel sheets rolled in tubes at Mill-5000.

The United Metallurgical Company is a major supplier of pipes, wheels for railcars, and other metal products for various industries, such as the transportation and the energy sectors.