Steel pipe excellent in deformation characteristics and method of producing the same

Abstract

The invention provides a steel pipe excellent in deformation characteristics, most notably a steel pipe for expandable-pipe oil well and a low-yield-ratio line pipe, and a method of producing the same without conducting water cooling requiring large-scale heat treatment equipment, namely a method of producing a steel pipe excellent in deformation characteristics whose microstructure is a two-phase structure including a martensite-austenite constituent at an area fraction of 2 to 10% and a soft phase, which method comprises: heating at Ac+10° C. to Ac+60° C. and thereafter cooling a precursor steel pipe which contains, in mass %, C: 0.04 to 0.10% and Mn: 1.00 to 2.50%, is limited to Si: 0.80% or less, P: 0.03% or less, S: 0.01% or less, Al: 0.10% or less and N: 0.01% or less, further contains one or more of Ni: 1.00% or less, Mo: 0.60% or less, Cr: 1.00% or less and Cu: 1.00% or less, where content of Mn and content of one or more of Cr, Ni, Mo and Cu satisfy Mn+Cr+Ni+2Mo+Cu≧2.00, and a balance of iron and unavoidable impurities.