TPi January 2012

business & market news

Distribution centre and extended manufacturing facility opens

supply chain departments have also moved to the customer facing facility to further improve internal and external communications. Significant investment has been made to extend the dedicated manufacturing facility where the company’s gas, water, sewer pipes and fittings and access chambers are manufactured. A similar reorganisation of the company’s Northern Ireland facilities will take place later this year, to allow for the manufacture of specialist pipe, including telecoms and FTTx. Radius Systems Ltd – UK onenquiries@radius-systems.com www.radius-systems.com

at Radius Systems’ Derbyshire, UK headquarters as part of a reorganisation to improve manufacturing and distribution efficiency.

A new 3,750m 2 worldwide fittings distribution centre and extended manufacturing facility for PE, PVC and PP pipes and fittings have been opened

Radius Systems, which manufactures and supplies polyethylene pipes and fittings to the utilities and telecoms industries, will store and distribute its range of electrofusion, spigot, butt fusion, compression and barrier pipe fittings at the new centre. The international sales, customer services and

Radius worldwide distribution centre

Pipeline industry grows with the need for increased security

a three-layer polyethylene coating to protect the Ras al Zour to Riyadh water pipeline. In Malaysia, Petronas has worked on the development of a toughened three-layer PP coating system, and the Indian company Welspun has studied the advantages of a PE coating and epoxy compared to cement. For rehabilitation in the field, Kleiss has a viscoelastic material. Field joint coating systems are critical to integrity and it can be hard to attain the factory-applied levels of sealing. The Nederlandse Gasunie has innovations in field coating for the new Dutch gas pipelines, while CANUSA has a novel automated system to control field- applied coating. Information supplied by Dr Sally Humphreys, business development manager, AMI Applied Market Information Ltd – UK info@amiplastics.com www.amiconferences.com

production tubes. Adhesion of coatings is vital: Dow Coating Materials has novel technology to improve coating with fusion-bonded epoxy (FBE). Quality control is critical in this industry and there are case studies from leading companies. Gazprom Vniigaz is studying the standards of pipe coating in the northern sections of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, and the Safa Rolling and Pipe Mills Company has been comparing testing protocols for cathodic disbondment. In the operating area, Statoil has been examining the temperature performance of polyurethane field joints. For subsea insulation, Total Exploration and Production is looking for wet thermal insulation coatings and suitable qualification methods. This is also an area of interest to Trelleborg Offshore, which supplies custom coating thermal insulation systems. Exova is in the business of testing coatings including subsea performance. In the Middle East, Borouge has been assisting in applying

Pipeline operators are renewing and repairing existing pipes and laying new pipelines to secure energy and water supplies across the world. There are also new applications upcoming, including carbon dioxide sequestering. Alongside this there is intense international interest in pipeline integrity, and delegates from around 40 nations are expected to meet to discuss current issues and solutions at the AMI conference, Pipeline Coating 2012, which takes place 27-29 February in Vienna, Austria. Oil, gas and water are being transported under very hostile conditions including extremes of temperature and pressure from subsea to deserts and arctic environments. The steel pipelines carrying these materials have to be protected both from the exterior and from interior corrosive factors in the fluid that is being transported. This is carried out using techniques such as cathodic protection and polymeric coatings. For example, DuPont has engineered internal coatings for downhole

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Tube Products International January 2012

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