Opening Ceremony for VAM® BRN Commercial Operation in Brunei

Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation (“NSSMC”) and Sumitomo Corporation (“Sumitomo”) hereby announce that on 10th of May 2017 the joint opening ceremony of SC Tubular Solutions (B) Sdn Bhd (“SCTSB”) and VAM®BRN SDN BHD (“VAM® BRN”) took place at their site, located within the Salambigar Industrial Park in Brunei Darussalam.

The event was attended by approximately 120 people from related organizations, including, as a guest of Honour His Royal Highness Prince Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah ibni His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah, the Crown Prince and Senior Minister at the Prime Minister's Office, along with national government officials, The Ambassador of Japan, representative of Brunei Shell Petroleum and representatives of investor companies.

For more than 40 years NSSMC and Sumitomo have been supplying seamless OCTG pipes to Brunei Shell Petroleum Co Sdn Bhd (“BSP”), a leading upstream oil and natural gas company in Brunei. In 2014 BSP, NSSMC and Sumitomo signed a contract to develop integrated Supply Chain Management and local threading services of seamless Tubulars in Brunei in response to a request from BSP and the government of Brunei.

In conjunction with this, VAM®BRN commenced OCTG local threading services in November 2016, and SCTSB started its provision of full Supply Chain Management Services with its own stock yard adjacent to VAM®BRN in January 2017. Since then both companies have been actively operating, in support of Brunei Shell Petroleum’s hydrocarbon production operations and in support of the wider vision as put forward by the Government of Brunei Darusallam.