Alexei Mordashov said energy giant Gazprom - project manager for the North European Gas Pipeline - is a major Severstal client, and that ensuring the quality of pipe for the ambitious $10.5-billion project was crucial.
"The North European Gas Pipeline is currently our first priority today," Alexei Mordashov said at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
Construction of the NEGP began last year. The pipeline will comprise two parallel legs of 750 miles each, and will run from Russia's Baltic coast near the city of Vyborg to the Greifswald region in north Germany.
"We are going to launch a new facility in St. Petersburg near Kolpino soon - a five-meter mill we have reconstructed," Mordashov said. "[The facility] will produce large-diameter pipes that we have been unable to produce in the country for a long time."
He said production would fully meet Gazprom's requirements for 18-meter pipes 1.42 meters in diameter, but that only one plant could currently produce the pipes.
"Demand for our products is increasing, and we are looking to the future with optimism and hoping for a great number of orders," Mordashov said.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney accused Russia earlier this month of using energy supplies to bully neighboring countries, in the wake of a bitter dispute with Ukraine earlier this year that saw supplies to the former Soviet republic cut off.
Russia has dismissed concerns about its reliability as a supplier, and says the NEGP will ensure stable flows to European consumers while reducing dependency on transit countries such as Ukraine.
Gazprom holds a 51% stake in the NEGP, with Germany's BASF and E.ON holding 24.5% each.
