PT Seamless to start producing pipe soon

CILEGON, West Java (JP): PT Seamless Pipe Indonesia Jaya, the country's second seamless pipe manufacturer, will start trial production next month with an initial production of 40,000 or 50,000 tons per annum, an executive said.

Bambang Hidayat, a director of the Bakrie Group which is part owner of the company, told reporters at its industrial complex here yesterday that the production capacity will be increased to 170,000 tons a year in 1997 when the company's manufacturing plant is running at full capacity.

Seamless Pipe Indonesia is 37.5 percent owned by PT Bakrie Nusantara Corporation, a subsidiary of the Bakrie Group, 28.9 percent by the state oil company Pertamina, 19.2 percent by the Asia Pacific Pipe Investment Corporation of Hongkong, 4.7 percent by PT Krakatau Steel, the state-owned steel company, 5.9 percent by PT Encona Engineering, 2.5 percent by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) and 1.3 percent by the Asian Finance Investment Corporation, an affiliate of the ADB.

Bambang said the manufacturer, which has started commissioning its heat treatment facility, will operate with 65 percent of local components next month.

"The local components for the seamless pipe production will be increased to 100 percent in 1997, when its hot rolling mill starts producing raw, preprocessed pipes," he said.

Danial Murtadho, general manager of the company, said that the firm has received orders for 40,000 tons of seamless pipes from Pertamina and its foreign contractors.

He said that annual demand for seamless pipes on the domestic market is estimated at 140,000 tons, some of which has been supplied by PT Citra Tubindo, a company operating in Batam.

Seamless Pipe Indonesia, set up with an investment of US$300 million, has received an API (American Petroleum Institute) certificate of standardization for its products, he said. (yns)