Interpipe Group

Interpipe Research, Industries & Investment Group

Native name	Група «Інтерпайп»
Romanized name	Hrupa "Interpayp"
Company type	Corporation/Holding company
Industry	Metallurgy, Carbon Steel Pipes production, Train wheel production, Axle production, Wheelset assembly, Steel billets production
Founded	1990
Founder	Viktor Pinchuk
Headquarters	Dnipro, Nikopol , Ukraine
Area served	International (invests in industries of different countries)
Key people	Viktor Pinchuk, Gennady Gazin
Products	Steel pipe, Railway wheel, Tyre, Axle, Wheelset, Steel billet
Services	Asset management, investment, trading and consulting
Owner	Viktor Pinchuk

Interpipe Group, or simply Interpipe, is a Ukrainian industrial company, a global producer of steel pipes and railway wheels. Interpipe headquarters and production facilities are located in Nikopol, Ukraine. The network of sales offices covers the key markets of Ukraine, CIS, Middle East, North America, and Europe.

Interpipe is a globally important player in carbon steel pipes (hence the name), hollow structural sections, train wheels and steel billets markets.

In 2020, Interpipe sold 469,900 tons of pipes and 192,400 tons of railway products. In-house steel production amounted to 759,000 tons.

11 000 employees work at Interpipe.

Products

The company supplies a wide range of pipe products in compliance with international standards, including ISO 9001, API Q1, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001. Pipes are produced according to API 5L, API 5CT, ASTM, EN (DIN), GOST and customer specifications.

Since 2018, Interpipe started producing its own proprietary premium and semi-premium connections - Ukrainian Premium Joint series (UPJ) - for OCTG pipes (Oil Country Tubular Goods) meeting ISO 13679 standard of CAL II and CAL IV level.

Railway products are certified in accordance with IRIS, AAR M-1003 and major railway operators and associations such as Deutsche Bahn, PKP, Ukrainian Railways, Association of American Railways. Interpipe produces more than 250 types of railway wheels, tyres, axles and wheelsets for locomotive, passenger and freight transport. Railway products to key export markets are supplied under a single KLW brand of Interpipe.

Quality problems

In June of 2023, Ukrnafta issued a tender for casing pipe. Roughly 80% of the pipe supplied by Interpipe in response to a contract signed under this tender were rejected for poor quality. This pipe was deemed totally unusable due to severe issues with threading. Interpipe was the only company that responded to the tender. An industry expert called the supplied materials "scrap metal" and blamed Ukraine's Ministry of Economy for allowing Interpipe to exercise de facto monopoly power over the steel pipe market.

Over-pricing investigation

As of August 2024, Interpipe was involved in a pre-trial investigation by the Ukrainian government regarding the overpricing of casing pipes, causing substantial damage to the state. Officials from Ukranafta are nominally the subjects of the investigation. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) conducted the investigation. During a raid, NABU seized a mobile phone from an Interpipe director. The phone was encrypted. The NABU sought and received permission from the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) to crack the phone. The phone belonged to Denys Morozov. The HACC determined in a pre-trial ruling that the overpricing, amounting to about UAH 18 million, was conducted through the abuse of transfer pricing by subsidiaries of Interpipe and other companies.

Business divisions

Starting from January 1, 2018, Interpipe has three operating divisions – Steel, Pipe, and Railway Products.

The Steel Product Division includes following production facilities: Interpipe Steel, Interpipe Vtormet, Lime Factory, as well as the departments for metal scrap procurement and steel billet sales. The division is headed by Andrey Korotkov, who holds the position of Director of Interpipe Steel mill currently.

The Railway Products Division includes the wheel-rolling shop and the railway axle and wheelset production facility at Interpipe NTRP, as well as the corresponding sales department. Alexander Garkavij, currently Interpipe’ CCO for Railway Products, is in charge of the division.

The Pipe Division includes pipe-rolling shops of Interpipe Niko Tube (Dnipro and Nikopol production sites) and Interpipe NMPP (Novomoskovsk), as well as pipe sales departments. Vera Smal has been appointed as Pipe Division Director.

The Center for Technical Competencies, responsible for the quality management, investments and R & D, is created at the corporate level. Corporate functions such as finance, procurement and logistics, product and resource management, HR, legal support, economic security, corporate affairs, and administrative support will be structured in Centralized Service Center.

Russia

Interpipe's subsidiary in Russia is known as Interpipe-M. It has become publicly known that Interpipe was operating in Russia after the invasion of 2022. In 2022 alone, Interpipe-M had a revenue of 131.66 million rubles and paid 36 million rubles to the Russian Federation in income tax. Interpipe also continued operating in Russia after the limited invasion of Ukraine in 2014. In 2017 and 2018, the company earned about $200 million for each year. Interpipe's financial filings are publicly available online from Russian government websites. These filings list Interpipe's business locations, tax payments, senior executives in Russia, certain expenses, etc. Both the Russian and Ukrainian subsidiaries of Interpipe are owned by the Cypriot company Interpipe Ltd. which is in turn owned by another Cypriot entity called Interpipe Holdings PLC. Through a complicated web of other companies, Interpipe is primarily owned by Viktor Pinchuk.

History

On June 6, 2013, Interpipe Steel Mill melted its millionth ton of steel, just 15 months after the launch of the facility.

Interpipe began supplying steel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) market in the early 2000s with up to 16% of global sales coming from this region. In early 2016, the company registered its trademark in the UAE.

Also in 2016, Interpipe completed a $16.2 million upgrade to facilities in Dnipro with a focus on increased railway related products and production.

In mid-2016 the company announced plans to expand its business presence in Qatar.

Awarded a long-term contract in 2016, in 2017, Interpipe delivered an initial order of 3,000 wheels to the Saudi Railways Organization (SRO).

In 2017, in an effort to combat counterfeiting of steel products, Interpipe introduced an online verification service that customer may utilize to authenticate their steel products.

Also in 2018, Interpipe started the pilot operation of a new line for pipe finishing at Interpipe Niko Tube in Nikopol (the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast of Ukraine). The company invested approximately $8 million into the line construction.

In 2019, Interpipe certified proprietary premium flush connection – Interpipe UPJ-F – for compliance with the international standard ISO 13679 CAL IV (Connection Application Level).

In 2020, Interpipe developed a new connection Intrepid-SP for the US market. The Company also has carried out the first delivery of passenger railway wheels for high-speed trains of the national German railway operator – Deutsche Bahn.

External links

• Media related to Interpipe Group at Wikimedia Commons
• Interpipe