SOLD OUT!

TMK IPSCO Koppel Tubulars Corp.
Thursday, May 6 • 7:30 a.m.–Noon
Cost: Member $50, Nonmember $75
(Tour is limited)

The TMK IPSCO Koppel operation offers an extensive line of seamless tubular products. These products are manufactured at the TMK IPSCO Koppel plant located in Ambridge, Pa. (near Pittsburgh). TMK IPSCO Koppel is a premier producer of seamless oil country tubular goods, drill pipe, coupling stock and line pipe used in the exploration, production and transmission of oil and natural gas.

Seamless products are manufactured from cast round billets produced in an electric arc furnace and ladle refining facilities located in Koppel, Pa. In Ambridge, solid cast round billets are heated in a rotary hearth furnace to temperatures over 2,000°F. Billets exit the rotary furnace to the piercer for conversion to tube hollows. Hollows move through the mandrel mill, where wall thickness is generated through an 8-stand floating mandrel mill process. Tubes exit the mandrel mill to the stretch reduction mill, where they are rolled to diameter. After the stretch mill process, tubes are cut to length for finishing. Finishing and further processing operations include premium and API production tube upsetting, normalizing, quench and temper, straightening, threading, EMI inspection, hydrotesting and coating.

SOLD OUT!

U. S. Steel–Mon Valley Works
Thursday, May 6 • 7:30 a.m.–Noon
Cost: Member $50, Nonmember $75
(Tour is limited)

United States Steel Corporation is a leading manufacturer of value-added steel products and primarily serves the automotive, appliance, container, construction and energy markets in North America and Central and Western Europe. Headquartered in the United States, U. S. Steel has an annual raw steelmaking capability of 32.3 million net tons. The company is also engaged in several other business activities, including coke and iron ore pellet production, transportation services (railroad and barge operations), and real estate.

The company’s vision states it more simply: Making Steel. World Competitive. Building Value. U. S. Steel is first and foremost a steelmaker focused on the making, shaping and treating of steel.

Tour Facilities
The hot end of Mon Valley Works is the historic Edgar Thomson Plant — Andrew Carnegie’s first steel mill — built in 1875. Production facilities include two blast furnaces, a basic oxygen steelmaking facility supported by ladle metallurgical and vacuum degassing processing units, and a dual-strand slab caster.

Finishing facilities, housed at the Irvin Plant, include a hot strip mill, pickle lines, a cold reduction mill, a recoil line and a coating line.

Processes
Coke, an almost pure form of carbon, is combined with iron ore and limestone in the Edgar Thomson Plant’s blast furnaces, where the actual steelmaking process begins. The blast furnaces produce molten iron, which is transformed into steel at the basic oxygen processing (BOP) shop. Every 40 minutes, a 500,000-pound heat of high-quality steel — enough to make almost 5,000 refrigerators or 3,000 washing machines — leaves the BOP shop. Once ladle slag is removed from the molten steel, it is transferred to either the ladle metallurgy facility, where temperature and chemistry are refined, or to the decarburization facility (degasser), where the steel’s chemistry is further refined for cleaner, low-carbon steel. The steel is then transformed into slab form at the continuous caster. The Edgar Thomson Plant casts more than 2.8 million tons of steel annually. At the caster, the strands are cut into slabs of preset length by a torch cutting machine, stamped for identification, inspected and hot loaded onto railroad cars. Every day, about 80 carloads of slabs are shipped to the Irvin Plant for further processing.

At the Irvin Plant, slabs are rolled into hot band, pickled in a controlled acid bath to remove scale, and cold reduced to a specified final thickness. The steel strip is then heat treated, or annealed, in a controlled atmosphere to make it strong and pliable. Most steel strip is temper rolled to improve the surface. Some strip is coated for special customer applications.

Please note: All non-U.S. citizens MUST provide a copy of their passport to AIST at the time of registration for the Mon Valley Works tour.