With its order for a complete extrusion line to extrude high-pressure pipes sized up to 1600 mm in diameter, ZAO Tehstroi (Kazan) will virtually double its own production capacity and also extend the overall range of pipes produced for the Russian market in Russia. At the beginning of 2011, the machine manufacturer, battenfeld-cincinnati (Bad Oeynhausen, Germany and Vienna, Austria), will install this extrusion line, the first in Russia able to extrude HDPE high-pressure pipes with diameters ranging up to 1600 mm. For ZAO Tehstroi, this will be its fifth extrusion line, with the four in place also from battenfeld-cincinnati.

Tehstroi has been producing pipes at its own facility for only about three years, but it has quickly climbed to a position among the country's leaders in the market for gas and water pipe with an annual throughput of some 22,000 tonnes. This new line will increase the processor's production capacity to about 45,000 tonnes/yr and its market share in Russia to more than 20%.

So far, Tehstroi has produced pipes with diameters ranging from 32 - 800mm, which it sells to more than 1000 customers in Russia and Kazakhstan. The plastics processor manufactures its pipes according to Russia's GOST technical standards. In addition to pipes, the company's product portfolio also includes molded parts and welding equipment.

The company took life in 2000 as a distributor of pipes for gas and water installations, and soon acquired a building license for all of Russia and established nine agencies. It now employs 170 and realizes more than 2 billion rubles (about €50 million) in annual sales.

The new extrusion line is designed as a coextrusion system for manufacturing pipes with a color stripe. In addition to its 150mm single-screw extruder, the company also is purchasing one of the manufacturer's pipe dies with an internal pipe cooling system. The PO 1600-120 VSI T is a lattice basket die with spiral mandrel specially developed for polyolefin processing.