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Pipeline products
OCTG goods
and
Oil Country Tubular Goods
The OCTG industry entered the 21
st
Century after a decade of streamlining. Consolidation
had taken place in the manufacturing segment. Market-driven forces, favouring only the
most productive mills, had brought about an accommodation with imports and better
distribution networks. The oil and gas operators, having lost many independents,
emerged stronger. Natural gas drilling was a priority of a newly efficient and responsive
enterprise.
Since the turn of the millennium, the fortunes of the OCTG industry have fluctuated.
At the same time, the products of the oil patch — casing, tubing, drill pipe, line pipe,
connectors — have undergone the steady development required of wares designed for
heavy work in punishing environments.
Those environments may also be said to have changed. The oceans are no less
turbulent. Bedrock is no less solid. But wells must be sunk deeper and with greater
accuracy all the time, in both elements. Raw materials lying farther afield are that
much more resistant to exploitation. Deposits of lesser promise are being reevaluated.
Reserves once deemed marginal (eg oil shale) must be made to yield.
All this must be accomplished by means of cost-effective, ecologically sound methods
that justify huge expenditure and Herculean effort. These pages present many of the
products and services with which OCTG professionals are meeting the challenge to
both the engineering and the commercial segments of the industry.
Photo – Superlit Boru Sanayi AS, Turkey – see page 52