The process begins with solid steel rounds, or billets, being cut to a specified length and sent through a walking-beam reheat furnace, where temperatures reach nearly 2,300°F. After exiting the reheat furnace, the preheated rounds are turned into a tube shell in the rotary piercing mill as the billets are cross-rolled between two barrel-shaped rolls at a high speed. The seamless shells enter mandrel mill, where they are rolled over a retained mandrel to provide the needed OD size and wall thickness for the next process. The process is carefully monitored using a state-of-the-art hot-wall measuring system. The shells are then reheated for final forming in a 24-stand stretch-reducing mill, where outside diameters are formed to customers’ exacting specifications. Wall thickness is again verified using a hot-wall measuring system. After being rotated and advanced on the walking-beam cooling bed, the pipes are batch cut and transferred to an in-process storage area, where they are handled by computer-controlled gantry cranes.