South Korea's SeAH Steel Starts Operations of its Second Pipe Plant in Vietnam

SeAH Holdings Corp., the holding company of South Korea's SeAH Group, announced that it has completed the second plant of SeAH Steel Vina (SSV), a subsidiary incorporated in Vietnam. With the expansion, the steel pipe output in the Southeast Asian country is ramped up by 10,000 tonnes per year.

The company has injected USD 37.8 million since June 2017 to build the plant in Dong Nai, Vietnam, which is capable of producing 100,000 tonnes of steel pipes per year. It took two years to build the plant, which will produce 2- to 4-inch general piping materials and tubing products for oil wells. The Korean steel group looks to become Asia's No. 1 producer of steel pipes.

The completion of the second plant will drive up SeAH Steel's pipe production capacity in Vietnam to 370,000 tonnes: 230,000 tonnes from the SSV No. 1 plant, 100,000 tonnes from the SSV No. 2 plant, and 40,000 tonnes from Vietnam Steel Pipe, a joint venture set up in 1993 by SeAH Steel and Vietnam's largest steel company VN Steel. It produces products of small diameters and general-purpose products.

SeAH Steel Holdings operates seven manufacturing plants across the globe including the United States, Italy and the United Arab Emirates. The company now is planning to make all-out efforts to fast optimize the production of the new plant to raise its SeAH Steel Vina to the No. 1 pipe maker in Asia.

SeAH is expanding its investment in the Vietnamese market in order to cope with the U.S. government's tightening regulations on imported steel products and penetrate the Southeast Asian market, which is enjoying a high economic growth rate.

Vietnam's steel pipe market is thriving on a rise in building projects, on top of the government's funding for local infrastructure. According to estimates by the Vietnam Steel Association, annual output and consumption of steels in the country grew by 15% and 21%, respectively, last year.