By placing the order for a complete extrusion line to produce high-pressure pipes of up to 1,600 mm in diameter, ZAO Tehstroi, Kazan, will not only virtually double its own production capacity, but also extend the overall range of pipes produced for the Russian market in Russia. At the beginning of 2011, the machine manufacturer battenfeld-cincinnati, Bad Oeynhausen/Vienna, will install the first extrusion line in Russia to manufacture HDPE high-pressure pipes with diameters ranging from 800 to 1,600 mm.
Tehstroi has been producing pipes at its own facility for only about three years, but already ranks with its current annual output of some 22,000 t among the leading manufacturers of PE pipes for gas and water transport in Russia. The order for the new extrusion line is the pipe specialist’s response to the rapid growth of its company and the market in general. With this high-pressure pipe extrusion line, which will start operating at the beginning of 2011, Tehstroi is increasing its production capacity to about 45,000 t and its market share in Russia to more than 20%.
So far, Tehstroi has produced pipes with diameters ranging from 32 to 800 mm, which are being sold to more than 1,000 customers on the domestic market in Russia and Kazakhstan. The plastics processor manufactures its pipes according to the GOST standards that have been laid down for Russia. In addition to pipes from in-house production, the product portfolio also includes molded parts and welding equipment from the company’s own production, which the young enterprise already began to produce in 2003.
During the ten years since its foundation in 2000, Tehstroi has seen extremely rapid growth. It started as a distributor of pipes for gas and water installations and quickly made a name for itself by consistent expansion of its own production capacity, the acquisition of a building license for the whole of Russia and the establishment of a total of nine agencies, for instance in Moscow, Ekatarinburg, Novosibirsk and Novgorod. Today, Tehstroi employs 170 people and realizes more than 2 billion rubels, or about 50 million Euros, in annual sales.
Tehstroi produces its pipes on four extrusion lines, each of which were planned, manufactured and installed as complete lines from battenfeld-cincinnati. “After careful consideration, we decided to purchase the extrusion lines three years ago, then still from Battenfeld Extrusionstechnik, as we were convinced that these lines would enable us to produce high-quality pipes at a favorable price", explains Aleksei V. Alekseev, Managing Director and CEO at Tehstroi. “We have never regretted this decision – on the contrary, our expectations were even exceeded. With the polyethylene pipes produced on our lines we won the ‘100 best products of the Russian Federation’ contest in 2009.” Therefore it was only natural to rely on the world’s largest extrusion brand once more when acquiring the latest line.
The new line is designed as a coextrusion system for manufacturing pipes with a color stripe. Like all complete lines from battenfeld-cincinnati, it consists of perfectly matched machine components, including material feeding, extruder, die and downstream equipment as well as a user-friendly machine control system. In addition to the 150 mm single-screw extruder, which ensures homogeneous, gentle melt processing by means of its optimally designed processing unit, above all the die with its innovative internal pipe cooling system guarantees a high end product quality standard.
The PO 1600-120 VSI T is a lattice basket die with spiral mandrel specially developed for polyolefin processing. Inside the die, the Efficient Air Cooling (EAC) system provides effective cooling with a substantial reduction in energy costs through a sophisticated air exchange system. Apart from high output, EAC ensures optimal product quality through minimal wall thickness fluctuation and reduction of the sagging effect. With this line, Tehstroi will be able to meet the high quality standards required for high-pressure pipes with cost- and energy-efficient production.
