business & market news
26
Tube Products International January 2012
Distribution centre and
extended manufacturing facility opens
A new 3,750m
2
worldwide fittings
distribution centre and extended
manufacturing facility for PE, PVC and
PP pipes and fittings have been opened
at Radius Systems’ Derbyshire, UK
headquarters as part of a reorganisation
to improve manufacturing and
distribution efficiency.
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
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
Radius worldwide
distribution centre
Pipeline industry grows with the need for
increased security
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
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
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
