POSCO Teams Up with ExxonMobil to Target the LNG Market

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] POSCO is strengthening technical cooperation with global company ExxonMobil to expand the market application of high manganese steel, the world's first mass-produced developed material.

On the 7th, POSCO announced that it held a business agreement ceremony connecting ExxonMobil RE (Research & Engineering Co.) in New Jersey, USA, ExxonMobil URC (Upstream Research Co.) in Texas, and POSCO Technical Research Institute in Pohang in a triangular collaboration to accelerate the development and market application of high manganese steel.

High manganese steel is an innovative steel material that adds a large amount of manganese (Mn, 10~27%) to iron, specializing in various performances such as high strength, wear resistance, cryogenic toughness, and non-magnetic properties.

The two companies agreed to first promote the application of cryogenic high manganese steel to storage tanks constructed in global LNG projects that ExxonMobil will order in the future. High manganese steel received material usage approval for onshore LNG storage tanks (KGS AC115) from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy last year and was first applied to the 5th LNG storage tank in Gwangyang, proving its performance and safety.

POSCO and ExxonMobil previously developed slurry pipes made of high manganese steel, which are oil sand (sand containing crude oil) transport pipes, through five years of technical cooperation from 2012 to 2017, eight years ago. At that time, the two companies devoted themselves to joint research from pipe manufacturing to oil sand field testing to develop welding technology and pipe forming methods optimized for the new material, high manganese steel. As a result of this cooperation, they succeeded in mass production of the product and won the Excellent Contract Award of the Year in the chemical, energy, environment, and materials fields at the North American Intellectual Property Association Annual Meeting in 2017.

Using high manganese steel slurry pipes extends equipment replacement cycles and reduces maintenance costs due to wear resistance more than five times superior to existing materials. Also, as replacement time decreases, production volume increases, improving plant operation efficiency.

This successful development experience of POSCO and ExxonMobil became an opportunity to recognize the excellence and potential of high manganese steel, and the two companies have continuously maintained their cooperative relationship since then.

Meanwhile, cryogenic high manganese steel is POSCO's proprietary patented technology, registered as a standard by the Korean Industrial Standards (KS) in 2014, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) in 2017, and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 2018. In 2018, it was approved as a material for onshore pressure vessels (KGS AC111) and ship LNG storage tanks (IMO Interim Guidelines), and in 2019, it was approved as a material for onshore LNG storage tanks (KGS AC115).

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