PRESS: Russia’s TMK ready to sell American assets

MOSCOW, Aug 22 (PRIME) -- Russian oil and gas pipe producer TMK is ready to sell its U.S. division TMK IPSCO as its sales volumes and incomes are falling due to lower demand from the energy industry and higher imports, business daily Kommersant reported Monday citing sources.

In its January–June report under International Financial Reporting Standards, the company said citing CEO Alexander Shiryaev that it “is considering different strategic options, including a share issue and disposal of some company assets, including international.” The company did not disclose what assets it may sell, but a source familiar with the company’s plans told Kommersant that it was the U.S. assets.

TMK Vice President for Strategy and Business Development told Reuters that the company does not rule out selling small and medium-sized assets depending on their price, and added that some U.S. plants of TMK are idle now, the business daily reported. “In general, we may consider sales of assets excluding main Russian ones, but we plan to remain a global company,” Kommersant cited him as saying.

TMK did not provide a comment on the matter.

TMK IPSCO consists of 12 facilities with a combined capacity of 1.39 million tonnes of pipes per year. In 2014, TMK studied its initial public offering. TMK IPSCO has not been working on full capacity since 2015, when its sales more than halved to 440,000 tonnes of pipes, and revenue plunged to U.S. $742 million from $1.76 billion in 2014.

The company explains the bad performance with a significant decrease of drilling works and spending on exploration and production of hydrocarbons in North America. This led to a significant contraction of sales of oilfield casing and tubular goods, Kommersant cited TMK as saying.

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