Posco and SeAH Steel Corporation plan to supply a total of around 12,000mt of stainless-steel pipes early next year, for a Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) project in Kitimat in British Columbia.
This $100mn order includes manufacturing and shipping pipes ranging from 6.4mm to 40mm in diameter. The Korean steelmaker will first produce semi-finished stainless steel plates that will then be sent to SeAH Steel to be completed into pipes before they are shipped to Kitimat.
The Kitimat project is valued at $14bn and is considered one of the largest LNG projects in Canada. Carbon steel is usually used to build oil pipelines, but this particular project uses stainless steel to handle extremely low temperatures of -100°c.
The first phase of the project will build two LNG trains to carry close to 13mn mt of LNG while the second phase, expected to start in 2024, will add more LNG trains.