Nippon Steel Starts Steel Pipe Pile Plant in Vietnam in May

Nippon Steel Pipe Vietnam (NPV), Nippon Steel’s subsidiary to manufacture steel pipe pile in Vietnam, starts operation in late May 2011. The initial capacity is 60,000 tonnes per year. NPV will start test run in early May and project full operation within this year. NPV established a sales base in Ho Chi Minh and stated operation on February 7th. The sales base tries to secure orders from building owners, consultant companies and general contractors. In Vietnam, infrastructure construction works are increasing. NPV cultivates domestic and regional ASEAN markets cooperatively with other shareholders, Vietnam Steel, a government-managed steel maker, and Japanese large dealers.

Japanese and Vietnamese governments are cooperating in large civil projects in Vietnam. NPV approaches to Japanese ODA projects or local building projects in cooperation with Nippon Steel’s engineers. Mr. Masatake Ohtsubo, sales manager of NPV, explained Nippon Steel has promoted collaborative research for design manuals with Vietnam Traffic & Transportation University in recent 5 years, eyeing cultivation of local steel pipe pile market.

In Vietnam, concrete piles are generally used as foundation piles of ports, bridges or electric power plants. Nippon Steel forecasts clients will shift to select steel pipe pile due to its light weight and high strength. The firm aims the market at 50,000 tonnes per year in Vietnam and 500,000 tonnes in ASEAN.

NPV has a spiral steel pipe production line, which can produce the pipe with maximum 3,000 millimeters diameter. Large diameter spiral pipe can be adopted to large scale projects in Vietnam. The initial employee number will be 150.