Page 52 - ITAtube Journal 2 2022

52
Mandrel Mill Mülheim/Ruhr
Review
The closure of the tube mills in
Mülheim and Düsseldorf marks
the end of an era.
Prof. Dr. Horst A. Wessel (1983-2008 Head of the Mannesmann Archives)
After the Vallourec production site in Düs- seldorf-Reisholz had already been closed in the summer of 2020 due to the collapse of sales markets, the last tube was rolled at the tube rolling mill in Mülheim-Ruhr
in August 2023 and at the plug mill and pilger mill in Düsseldorf-Rath in October 2023. The generally deteriorating general conditions and, in particular, the crises in the oil and gas industry, which dominates the business, combined with large over- capacities on the global pipe market had prompted the French company to take this decision. Europipe’s large-diameter pipe mill and Salzgitter’s plate rolling mill and some ancillary operations (pipe bending mill and Eupec PipeCoatings) remain in Mülheim. In Düsseldorf, the steel pipe industry is history. The Mannesmann embankment, the Mannesmann high-rise used by the NRW Ministry of Economics and the former headquarters of Mannes- mann, now the NRW House of History, are
still reminders of the steel pipe industry that dominated the city and the state for more than a century.
Düsseldorf, an important tube location
for more than one and a half century, still adorned itself with the epithet “tube city”
in the 1980s. In 1860 Albert Poensgen had moved the first steel tube factory on the continent, together with the workforce and their families, from the Eifel mountains to Düsseldorf-Oberbilk, thus setting in motion a development that was unique in the world. At one time there were twelve steel tube mills in Düsseldorf and its immedi- ate surroundings, not counting the tube drawing mills. The peak was reached in 1899 with the Reisholz tube works founded by Heinrich Ehrhardt and the Mannesmann tube works in Rath, both seamless tube works, but operating according to different processes. The national, European and world tube associations had their head-
ITAtube Journal December 2023