TNK-BP and TMK, which accounts for 42% of Russia's steel pipe output, announced on Monday that they had entered into a new agreement on global cooperation. The previous three-year contract on pipe deliveries worth $500 million expires in 2007.
The major new deal is seen as an unprecedented cooperation step between pipe and oil and gas companies.
"We had no doubt that our strategy was correct when we entered into the global cooperation agreement with TMK in 2005," TNK-BP CEO Robert Dudley said. "Through our joint efforts over the last three years, we have achieved excellent results in quality enhancement, extension of the product range, and the introduction of new tubular technologies."
TMK, which sold more than 3 million metric tons of pipes in 2006, supplies its products to major oil and gas companies including energy giant Gazprom, oil pipeline operator Transneft, crude producers Rosneft, LUKoil, TNK-BP, Surgutneftegaz, and also to world oil majors Shell, Total, Occidental Petroleum and others.
