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Tancredo Martins, Director General, VSB
“
With four years of works
and more than 11 thousand
employees working on the
construction of Vallourec
& Sumitomo Tubos do Brasil
(VSB), the new steel making
complex, inaugurated in
September, marks the history
of the Vallourec Group, not
only by it being a steel plant
with cutting-edge technology
equipment, but also for it becoming an important channel
in the production of seamless steel tubes.
In order to have a dimension of the importance of a new
plant for Vallourec, the annual production of 600 thousand
tons of VSB tubes (of which 300 thousand go to Vallourec)
will increase the Group’s capacity by 10%.
Due to the complexity of the equipment and the concern
with the high quality of the products, step by step, all the
Plant’s areas have begun to take shape and enter into
operation.
In terms of health and safety, we have broken a record
for large-scale, complex Works. The safety results of the
contractors during assembly and installation was achieved
topping the goal established by the Group. It is operational
process safety that is already worked on every day with
our collaborators by means of awareness campaigns.
Since the startup of the plant construction in 2007,
Aerial view of the VSB
steel making facility, whose
area is 2.5 million m 2 .
Annual production will
be one million tons of
crude steel and 600
thousand tons of seamless
steel tube. Image produced
in February 2011.
VSB has worked under the banner of sustainability in its
actions. To this end, it develops not only its collaborators
but also the surrounding communities to the plant.
VSB seeks to make aware and motivate everyone to preserve
the environment. For this, it created a Reference Center
in Revegetation of the Atlantic Forest in a space close
to the Plant, where thousands of native species saplings
have already been planted. With the main objective of
recovering the referred areas through different scientifically
consolidated revegetation models, monitoring will be done
in the development of the saplings planted, periodically
qualifying the progress of the biodiversity of fauna and
flora, biomass and stored carbon.
As an installed company, there will be 1,600 direct Jobs.
It is also important to point out the role of each employee
for VSB’s success. The efforts and commitment of all
its collaborators so that the Company will obtain the
recommendation of certification in norms API/Q1, API 5l,
API 5ct, ISO/TS 29001 and ISO 9001 of the American
Petroleum Institute (API), demonstrates that all are
always focused on quality. We have achieved the result
without non-conformity with the requisites evaluated.
Fruit of a joint venture formed between Vallourec and
Sumitomo Metals, partners for more than 30 years in the
field of premium connections for the oil and gas industry,
VSB will have the commitment to maintain the quality of
its products and maintain credibility of the two groups in
the international seamless steel tube market.”
Even before starting the works, the first step made
by VSB was in the direction of sustainability with
the study of possible environmental impacts caused
by the Plant and the compliance to the conditions
proposed by the environmental authorities fo concession
of the licenses.
From then onward, the first challenge would be the
earthmoving needed in the 2.5 million m 2 of area
reserved for the steel making complex within the
Jeceaba Industrial District, whose total area has
12,500,000 m 2 . During the works, more than 19
million m 2 of earth were moved, 100 thousand
meters of piles driven into the soil and 200 thousand
cubic meters of concrete.
The logistics of the arrival of equipment that would
start to give shape to VSB had special care, due to
the complexity and size of the undertaking. A Dry
Port with an area of 40 thousand m 2 was built to
conduct the customs clearance and receival of
imported equipment arriving at the complex. “The
organizational and communications part was vital
to a structure such as this. We received crates of
up to 60 tons down to screws. The lack of a determined
equipment could harm the rhythm of the construction
or operation,” emphasized Tancredo
Martins, Director General of VSB.
A major differential of the VSB Steel Complex is the
management of its electrical systems (substations),
water and effluents (capture, treatment systems,
recirculation systems and physical and chemical
analysis laboratories), waste and by-products (internal
transportation of flasks, bottles, bins and containers,
physical/chemical characterization, oil regeneration
unit and dispatch to final destination).
Planned from the DBOT model (Design, built, operational,
transfer) a contract was signed with the
company Foz do Brazil for engineering, construction,
operation and management transfer, 15 years after
the contract signing, for VSB.
STRUCTURE
The steel shop buildings and rolling mills at the
Plant were built using Vallourec Group structural
tubes. VSB utilized 40 thousand tons of tubular
metallic structures, a volume equivalent to what
would be used to build the Eiffel Tower.
Weighing 74 thousand tons each and capable of
producing approximately two Thousand tons of pig
iron per day, the VSB two blast furnaces are suited
for using either charcoal or coke. Like V & M do
BRASIL, which uses off gases generated by the blast
furnaces for generation of power, VSB also will adopt
such a system.
The VSB steel making
produces steel bars with
diameters of 270 mm,
310 mm and 406 mm.
The methodology adopted in the blast furnace process,
besides its effective production, also assures
the sustainability of the process. Flávio Azevedo
points out that the environmental model chosen by
VSB is more eco-efficient, with the use of charcoal,
which contributes to the reduction of greenhouse
gas effect emissions. “This will be one of the largest
charcoal based steel plants in the world,” he mentions.
The VSB steel shop is the first in the world built
with a tubular metallic structure and equipped with
unique to Latin America: the CONSTEEL process.
Together with the electric arc furnace (EAF), it optimizes
energy consumption and assures greater control
over the steel fusion process, with low level of
noise and particulate emissions. Another differential
of the area is the casting of large-diameter bars (406
mm), another first in the Vallourec Group.
The equipment used by VSB makes the difference
in the product’s final quality. The three-roll PQF
mill, for example, uses state-of-the-art. The entire
procedure is made up of a rotating heating furnace,
The building that
give VSB its form
was constructed
with structural tubes
produced by
the Vallourec Group.
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