Manganese Steel
POSCO's new high manganese steel plate was first applied to oil sand slurry pipes of Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company. POSCO agreed to mass-produce and supply "high manganese steel for slurry pipes" jointly developed with ExxonMobil on March 22. The slurry pipe is used to transport oil sand mixtures.
"Thanks to close teamwork between ExxonMobil and POSCO, we were able to commercialize the new high-manganese steel technology used for drilling and oil sand fields and producing oil," said Tom Schuessler, president of ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, who visited the POSCO Center in Teheran-ro, Seoul.
POSCO and ExxonMobil have jointly manufactured slurry pipes to use high manganese steel as a material for slurry pipes and verified their quality through on-site installation over the past five years.
Last year, POSCO produced slurry pipes about 1.2km in length using high manganese steel and welding technology and tested them in actual conditions by tentatively installing them in the Kearl Oil Sand Project of ExxonMobil for about one year. Then, POSCO confirmed that they towered over other pipes in terms of wear performances.
POSCO’s high manganese steel applied this time has more than 5 times higher wear resistance than existing materials and becomes harder as wear progresses, dialing up the life of slurry pipes a great deal.
"We will continue to step up our cooperation so that we can maximize synergies in various aspects of the oil sand industry as well as in production of slurry pipes by utilizing high manganese steel in the future," POSCO Chairman Kwon said.