business & market news
14
Tube Products International October 2012
MCA Hire and Thermofuse
Pipelines in repair
programme
MCA Hire, Thermofuse Pipelines,
Denholm Pipecare and Balfour Beatty
Civil Engineering Ltd are helping to
maintain an 80km stretch of the Vyrnwy
Large Diameter Trunk Main (LDTM), UK,
for United Utilities.
The team will be working to repair three
existing LTDM’s that run from the water
treatment works in Oswestry to the
Prescot Water treatment works near
Liverpool. LTDM number 3 is bitumen-
lined steel that will be pressure jetted.
Lines 1 and 2 of the LTDM are unlined
cast iron and will be refurbished with
polyethylene (PE) using the specialist
technique of swage lining, a process
applied by Denholm Pipecare.
The swage lining technique is where
butt welded strings of a liner are drawn
through a specialist reducing die to
reduce the overall diameter of the PE
lining and allow insertion into the host
cast iron main. Over a period of time the
PE’s elasticity will allow the PE lining to
revert to its original diameter, creating a
tight fit and maximising the bore of the
newly lined cast iron main. The specialist
operation of butt fusion welding of the
large diameter liner is being carried out
by Thermofuse Pipelines.
MCA, part of Drain Center, was involved
with the Vyrnwy project when trials first
started four years ago. It provided a
McElroy 1648 specialist large diameter
butt fusion machine, and as the project
developed, MCA imported an additional
brand new McElroy 1648 welding
machine from America to enhance
on-the-job performance, which is due
to make its first UK site appearance
next week.
Efficiency on-site is already high. United
Utilities set the team a target of eight
welds per day, but the team from
Thermofuse Pipelines sometimes find
themselves completing ten or 11 welds
in a day.
The maintenance and repair work on
the pipelines is part of United Utilities’
14-year cleaning and maintenance
programme to the Vyrnwy LDTM to
improve water quality. The Vyrnwy LDTM
consists of three parallel pipelines with a
total length of around 240km.
MCA Hire Services
– UK
Thermofuse case study
Ashley Bentley, MCA hire regional operations
manager
Contract for 750km Upper Zakum field
awarded to Technip
Technip, in a consortium with National
Petroleum Construction Company
(NPCC), has been awarded, by Zakum
Development Company (ZADCO), a
lump sum engineering, procurement,
fabrication, installation, commissioning
and start-up contract for the Upper
Zakum 750K Project in Abu Dhabi,
United Arab Emirates.
The field is located in the Gulf, 84km
offshore Abu Dhabi. It is divided
into four production artificial islands
(Central, North, South and West), with
processing facilities at the Central
Complex. The scope of work covers
240kmof subsea pipelines ranging from
6" to 42"; 128km of subsea composite
and fibre-optic cables; and almost
30,000 tons of offshore structures
(jackets, riser platforms, flare towers
and bridges), including approximately
3,000 tons of islands modules and
bridges. The contract also includes the
complete initial production facilities for
temporary wells hook up to serve initial
production distributed amongst the
North, South and Central islands.
Technip’s operating centre in
Abu Dhabi will execute the overall
engineering and participate in
procurement, on-island works, cable
installation and initial production. The
project is scheduled to be completed
in the third quarter of 2015.
The award reinforces Technip’s
involvement in major offshore projects
and its association with NPCC.
Technip
– France
