Vallourec Germany

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Vallourec Germany

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1997 (2013)
Seat Dusseldorf
management Ulrich Menne, Dirk Bissel (Managing Director)

Finance and accounting, financial controlling / risk management, controlling, purchasing, compliance officer

Prof. Dr. Herbert Schaaff, Mönchengladbach Chairman of the Management Board

Branch Steel pipes
Website www.vallourec.com

Vallourec Deutschland GmbH is a manufacturer of seamless hot-rolled steel tubes, which are used in the energy sector, mechanical and plant engineering and steel construction. Vallourec Deutschland GmbH, headquartered in Düsseldorf, is a subsidiary of the French Vallourec Group .

Company history

The company started in 1997 under the name Vallourec & Mannesmann Tubes as a Franco-German joint venture between the Vallourec Group (55%) and what was then Mannesmannröhren-Werke AG (45%). Both partners brought their entire activities for seamlessly hot-finished pipes and oilfield pipes to the new company.

In May 2000, V & M Tubes took over Mannesmann SA in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, which has since operated as V & M do Brasil SA. In July 2002 V & M Tubes acquired the tube activities of the US American North Star Steel and incorporated them into the group under the name V & M Star. V&M Star has manufacturing facilities in Youngstown, Ohio and an oil field pipe center in Houston, Texas.

In July 2005, Vallourec took over the 45% stake in the joint venture previously held by Salzgitter AG . Since then, V & M Tubes has been a wholly-owned Vallourec subsidiary. To increase further processing capacities, a new pipe plant was opened in Changzhou, China, in 2006. Another plant followed in Youngstown (Ohio, USA) in 2013.

Since November 1, 2013, the company has been operating under the name Vallourec Deutschland GmbH. The Mannesmann part of the name was omitted because the holder of the name rights ( Salzgitter AG ) only permitted use for a transitional period.

Production facilities

The company operates four pipe plants in Germany (two in Düsseldorf-Rath , one in Düsseldorf-Reisholz and one in Mülheim an der Ruhr ).

Düsseldorf-Rath

The traditional factory site, where pipes have been manufactured using the " Mannesmann " process since 1899 , is located in the north of Düsseldorf near the airport. It has two hot rolling mills .

The plug line produces casings and line pipes for the oil and gas industry, boiler pipes, pipes for mechanical processing and steel construction hollow profiles from round steel blocks with an individual weight of up to 4 t . These profiles can be both round and angular (MSH) and reach a maximum length of almost 15 m. The dimensions range from 178 to 406 mm (16 '') for the outer diameter and from 5.6 to 45 mm for the wall thickness. For tube production, there are inclined, plug, smoothing and sizing mills in the plug mill. The individual pipes are tempered with heat treatment (also liquid tempering), finishing, thread cutting systems and socket screw connections. Quality assurance takes place in a water pressure test system, during metallurgical tests and with the help of ultrasound , EMI and magnetic powder.

The product lines of the Pilgerstrasse are similar to those of the plugging line, but the range of dimensions for the exclusively round tubes includes outside diameters from 241 to 711 mm (28 '') and wall thicknesses from 8 to 150 mm. Round steel blocks of up to 7 t individual weight are also used as starting material.

The tube production takes place here in inclined, stretching, pilger and sizing mills, tempering and quality inspection correspond to the plug mill.

Düsseldorf rice wood

Real heavyweights are produced in the south of Düsseldorf. The Reisholz pressing plant was built in 1899 by Heinrich Ehrhardt , the inventor of the pressing and drawing process. The Reisholz plant mainly supplies customers from the power plant sector (conventional and nuclear) as well as from the areas of heavy hydraulics and offshore installations.

The starting blocks can weigh up to 27 t and offer a wide range of materials right up to austenitic steels. The maximum production length is 10.5 m. The wall thicknesses in the Reisholz plant range from 20 to 250 mm, with external diameters between 300 and 1,500 mm and internal diameters between 220 and 1300 mm being possible.

A vertical 4000 t hot hole press and a horizontal 1500 t hot drawing bench shape the heavy starting blocks . In addition to the finishing process , the tempering process also includes the heat treatment systems and CNC precision lathes, deep hole drilling machines as well as grinding and milling machines. A water pressure test system is available for quality assurance, and metallurgical tests as well as ultrasonic, magnetic powder and dye penetrant tests are carried out.

On February 7, 2020, Vallourec announced that it wanted to close the plant in Düsseldorf-Reisholz. About 300 employees are affected by the decision.

Mülheim an der Ruhr

The continuous rolling mill in Mülheim an der Ruhr, about 30 km northeast of Düsseldorf, is the company's most powerful rolling mill for seamless steel tubes with an outside diameter of up to 189 millimeters. In this dimension range, the tube contour line covers the complete spectrum of seamless hot-rolled tubes in material grades up to and including 13% chromium content. The wall thicknesses range from 2 to 32 mm. Square and rectangular hollow profiles (MSH profiles) can also be manufactured in the Kontistrasse. Another product of this plant are long boiler tubes with a length of up to 25.3 m.

Skew, continuous and stretch-reducing rollers are available for production. In addition to the required heat treatment systems, the plant has high-performance thread cutting machines for API delivery pipes (tubings) and smaller casing dimensions (casings) as well as socket screw connections, finishing and hydraulic pressure testing presses. The quality of the steel pipes is checked using EMI, ultrasound, magnetic powder and eddy currents.

Holdings

Research centers

The company operates a research center in Riesa (Saxony) in Germany.

literature

  • Horst A. Wessel , Kornelia Rennert: The Mülheim tube factory. Mannesmannröhren-Werke. Sutton Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-89702-904-9 .
  • Horst A. Wessel : The birthplace of the seamlessly rolled steel tube: the Mannesmannröhren factory in Remscheid, the inventors and the mechanical workshop. Klartext-Verlagsges., 2012, ISBN 3-8375-0707-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Thorsten Breitkopf: Philippe Crouzet and Norbert Keusen - "We will preserve the legacy of Mannesmann". In: RP Online . October 19, 2013, accessed February 8, 2020 .
  2. Alexander Schulte: Vallourec gives up in Düsseldorf-Reisholz. In: Westdeutsche Zeitung . February 7, 2020, accessed February 7, 2020 .