The Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant Group (CPPG). The CPPG brings together ferrous metallurgy enterprises and companies: the Chelyabinsk Pipe-Rolling Plant, the Pervouralsky New Pipe Plant, META Ltd., a company for collecting and processing metal scrap, the metal trading department of the CJSC Uraltrubostal and the oil servicing division represented by the company Rimera.
The Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant Group is one of the leading industrial companies in Russia's metallurgical industry. Its share in total shipments by Russian producers was 16.5% at the end of 2009. Its profit margin is $2 billion a year and it employs about 20,000 workers.
The Group's Director-General is Alexander Fyodorov.
Electric pipe welding facility Vysota 239
Vysota 239 is the first "white metallurgy" facility in Russia. It is so called, first because 239 is the elevation of the geographical spot where the facility is being built, which is the elevation above sea level of the southern part of the Urals Ridge (the highest spot where such production of piping in Russia is located). Second, the CPPG is sure that the new facility with modern equipment and technology, a new attitude toward labour that meets international quality standards must have a sonorous individual name, in the event it is Vysota, the Russian word for "height."
The construction of a facility for the production of large-diameter pipes for oil and gas began in 2008. The cost of the project is estimated at 21 billion roubles. At the end of 2009 CPPG received state guarantees for a 5-billion rouble loan from Gazprombank, which helped the company to successfully complete the construction of Vysota-239.
Production at the new CPPG facility will meet Russian and international standards. The product will be used to build long-distance pipelines in offshore development areas, earthquake-prone zones, in permafrost, in rugged terrain, and when laying underwater and deep-sea pipelines.
The facility's capacity is 600,000 tonnes a year. Vysota-239 will produce 50,000 tonnes of piping before the end of 2010 and will reach design capacity by 2011. Vysota-239 will produce single-seam large diameter (508-1420 mm) pipes with wall thickness of up to 48 mm, strength class up to X 100, with inner and outer coating.
The new facility will have two production lines: one for the production of pipes 18 m long with 38 mm thick walls, and another for pipes 12 m long with walls up to 48 mm thick. The main supplier of metal for the new facility will be the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant. The equipment was supplied by SMS Meer of Germany.
The introduction of the new facility will create 1400 new jobs. At present about half of the employees have university degrees. Beginning in February this year CPPG announced vacancies for worker jobs at the new facility. Dozens of the project's employees have completed internship at companies in Germany and the US. Each newly hired worker takes an individual training programme. There are more than 10 candidates for every vacancy in the facility.
The director of the Vysota-239 is Valentin Tazetdinov.
What is "white metallurgy"?
CPPG's "white metallurgy" is a modern metallurgical production facility that combines a high culture of production, top quality products, environmental safety and a high skill level among worker. The concept of "white metallurgy" refers to hi-tech processes, primarily in medicine and microelectronics, where a high premium is put on precision and responsibility and the employees traditionally wear white overalls.
Thanks to the use of new technologies, "white metallurgy" destroys the entrenched stereotype whereby work with metal is regarded as "dirty" production that rules out clean white overalls. "White metallurgy" at CPPG's state of the art facilities is a philosophy of work based on the introduction of cutting-edge technology, a highly educated workforce, environment-friendly production and comfortable labour conditions.