It was reported that five stainless steel pipe companies which included Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation, Nisshin Steel, Nippon Steel & Sumikin Pipe Corporation, etc, announced the merger of stainless steel welded pipe business on August 2nd.

The merger would be signed in January 2019 and a new company would be formed in April 2019. The sales scale of the new company would be about 25 billion yen per year, and the sales volume was estimated to be about 35,000 tons. 

The market share of stainless steel TIG welded pipe and laser welded pipe would reach 50%. It was expected to become the largest stainless steel pipe manufacturer in Japan.