PIPELINE COATING | November 2011 16

coating | mobile systems

Steel is the material of choice for most of the world’s

transmission pipelines today. Ensuring integrity of a

steel pipeline is maintained beyond the nominal 25-35

year service life is an important aspect in its design,

construction and operation, as failure can lead to

human and economic costs as well as risking signifi-

cant damage to the public’s perception of pipeline

owners and operators.

Over the years, a great deal of engineering and

technical resource has been directed to protecting pipes

against any potential factors that could lead to pipeline

failure [1]. As part of this, the pipeline industry has

developed a variety of external coatings to provide one

or a multiplicity of functional roles – anti-corrosion

protection, mechanical protection, thermal insulation,

buoyancy control, for instance.

Manual coating of pipelines is usually slow, labour

intensive, and inherently prone to application defects

and quality inconsistency. Therefore, most of the

pipeline coatings for new pipelines are today applied in

specialised facilities, using industrial-scale automated

coating processes that allow mass production, are less

Mobilising pipeline protectionintensive in labour, and offer guaranteed quality. In this

traditional setup, these specialised permanent facilities

are applying coatings to bare steel pipes and are

typically either integrated with the steel pipe mills or

located close by and operated by independent coating

companies.

However, the trend in the oil and gas industry is that

new fields are being discovered and opened up further

and further from the main markets, with the result that

new pipelines are being built far from existing pipe mills

and/or coating plants. In what is an increasingly global

business, pipes can be sent from a location on one side of

the world to be installed on the other side. These industry

trends are challenging the permanent/fixed coating

facility model and coating companies such as Bredero

Shaw, a division of ShawCor, are looking to innovative

mobile pipeline coating technologies to help pipeline

operators reduce project cost, cut construction time,

simplify logistics and streamline project management.

Mobile coating plantBredero Shaw’s new modular mobile plant is capable of

Bredero Shaw’s

new Brigden

modular

coating plant

can be shipped

anywhere in

the world

Almost all the new steel pipelines built today worldwide are protected by coatings applied at specialised fixed coating facilities. However, this approach is being challenged by innovative mobile technologies, according to Bredero Shaw

manufacturing both anti-corrosion and flow assurance

pipe coating solutions to the same quality and output as

traditional fixed plants. The Brigden plant concept

includes pipe pre-heating and automatic end finishing

using advanced robotics. Each turnkey operating facility

is assembled from equipment supplied in standard and

specifically-designed ISO-certified shipping containers.

Individual modules can be added to to the baseline

layout to expand the plant’s capabilities to accommodate

various flow assurance and anti-corrosion pipe coating

technologies, robotic cutback, different extruder require-

ments, or utilisation of novel or proprietary coatings. The

modular construction also means that a plant can be

adapted to regional or client specific needs such as

production of small or large diameter pipes, application of

internal coatings, or especially high manufacturing

volumes. Electrical power can be provided from utility

grid sources or generated on site as necessary for the

project. Even the absence of an appropriate building

structure is not a limitation, as the modular system

includes a complete steel frame and fabric building that is

rated to meet coastal wind standards.

Operation of each Brigden plant is lead by a dedicated

team of application experts trained in continuous

improvement practices and supported by Bredero

Shaw’s regional operation resources to ensure safe and

timely manufacturing and delivery. Plant set-up and

execution is based on the standard operating practices

integral to the ShawCor Manufacturing System.

The Brigden mobile plant provides the same

production capability as a fixed plant. The system is

capable of coating pipe with an outside diameter of 8-42

inches (220-1,066mm), lengths of 34-80 ft (10.4-24.4m)

and weights up to 325 lb/ft (484 kg/m). It includes

integrated facilities for raw materials storage, facility

maintenance, and quality control and testing. All phases

of the coating operation - including surface preparation,

pre-heating, coating application and final inspection -

can be conducted in an enclosed area of 18,000 sqft

(1,700 sqm). A total area of 2.8 acres (1.2 hectares) is

required to set- up the entire facility, excluding pipe

storage requirements [2].

The Brigden system incorporates the latest capable,

safe, and reliable pipe coating technology and employs

Bredero Shaw’s current processes designed to deliver

high quality products in locations not served by fixed

plants. System users also benefit from the ability of

Bredero Shaw’s engineering, mobile technology and

operations personnel to deliver an end-to-end solution

wherever and whenever it is needed.

Logistical advantagesThe benefits of coating pipes close to the point of use

become even more attractive where concrete weight

coatings are to be employed. For more than 40 years,

concrete weight coatings have been applied to offer

negative buoyancy to offshore pipelines and onshore

pipelines that cross wet environments. Concrete

coatings can also provide supplementary mechanical

protection to the pipe and pipe coating against impacts

from rocks and excavation damage.

When correctly applied, concrete coatings are the

only mechanical protection systems in the industry that

can protect the pipe during the whole pipeline construc-

tion process, from transportation, through temporary

storage, handling, stringing, lowering in, and on into

backfilling. And they do this in a far more cost-

competitive way than alternatives such as increasing

steel pipe wall thickness.

However, the additional weight of the concrete

coating also adds significantly to the cost of logistics.

These costs increase not only because of the additional

PIPELINE COATING | November 2011 18

Above left:

Bredero Shaw’s

mobile coating

systems can be

located in

temporary

steel framed

enclosures

Centre: Pipe

being coated

with concrete

using the side

wrap technique

in one of

Bredero Shaw’s

mobile coating

plant

Right: A mobile

concrete

coating plant

during

installation on-

site in Trinidad

weight that has to be transported, but because of the

reduced number of pipes that can be carried in each

trip - concrete coated pipe takes up more space on the

truck or vessel.

One of the technological solutions to this logistical

challenge is the compression coat process. Developed

by a Bredero Shaw predecessor company, this tech-

nique was first applied in a mobile format in 1994 and

has been further developed since then into a fully

modular package system.

The compression coat process used a side-wrap

automated technique where the pipe is rotated and

conveyed by support wheels at controlled rates through

the concrete applicator. The concrete mix, a reinforcing

steel mesh and a polyethylene outer wrap are simulta-

neously applied around the pipe at the required

concrete thickness in a single pass. The tensioned

polyethylene outer wrap helps the complete curing of

the concrete before the coated pipe is moved to the

storage area [3].

Today, a mobile concrete coating plant can be

delivered packaged in between 8 to 12 standard 20 ft

containers from Bredero Shaw’s central hub in Texas in

the US. Such a mobile coating plant can be up and

running within two weeks of arrival on site and can be

configured for both onshore and offshore product

applications for pipes from 6 to 48 inches (168 to 1,220

mm) in diameter.

The mobile concrete coating option delivers the

same coating quality that would be expected from a

fixed production site but significantly cuts logistical

costs for the pipeline operator. There may be a further

benefit derived from the ability to use local contractors

to help operate these mobile plants. Raw materials –

cement, heavy aggregates, sand – as well as the

auxiliary rolling stock required for the concrete coating

operations – cranes, trucks, front end loaders – can

often all be locally-sourced.

In addition, operators gain from the fact that Bredero

Shaw avoids the fixed costs associated with running

permanent facilities which may not be fully utilised.

After being demobilized, every component of each

mobile plant is repaired, refurbished and tested in Texas

before being repackaged and mobilized to its next

coating project.

Since its first mobilized project in Italy in 1994,

Bredero Shaw’s mobile concrete coating plants have

completed more than 200 projects with concrete weight

coatings (Compression Coat) and mechanical protection

concrete coatings (Rock Jacket) for more than 150

customers. In that time, coating plants have been

mobilised to more than 50 locations around the world.

In-field improvementA review of mobile pipeline coating technologies would

be incomplete without a mention of the coating

operations that have to be executed in the field, such as

the coating of the weld area in field joints or the

protection of various fabricated parts of oil and gas

production systems. In such cases, the pipes are welded

in long strings or structures – spools, jumpers or trees

– which simply cannot be coated by a standard pipe

coating plant.

Field joint and custom coatings must be successfully

applied in a wide variety of locations – by the right-of-

way, on spoolbases, at fabrication yards or offshore on

pipelaying vessels. Each presents different configura-

tions and challenges and some of the main selection

criteria for a field joint or custom coating system include:

good long-term technical performance; compatibility

with the plant-applied pipe coating; ease and consistency

of quality of application under the specific local condi-

tions; and appropriate application cycle time.

November 2011 | PIPELINE COATING 19

mobile systems | coating

About the authors:Vlad Popovici is Marketing and Sales Manager for Bredero Shaw FJS, a ShawCor companythat is focused on the application of coating systems for field joints and subseaproduction structures.

Raphael Moscarellois Global Marketing

Manager for Bredero Shaw, the world’s largest applicator of pipeline coatings for the

oil and gas industry for both onshore and offshore pipelines.

❙ www.brederoshaw.com❙ www.brederoshawfjs.com

s

Traditionally, these coatings would have been

applied manually but the need to optimise performance

has created incentives for specialised coating compa-

nies to automate as much as possible of the field

coating processes. Bredero Shaw FJS, the field joint and

custom coating business unit of ShawCor, has applied

many of the principles used elsewhere within the

company to increase the mobility and automation of its

equipment. Most of Bredero Shaw FJS’s projects now

use semi-automated and automated equipment for

blasting, spraying or moulding the various anti-

corrosion and thermal insulation coatings.

More informationBredero Shaw Global Marketing Manager Raphael

Moscarello and ShawCor Vice-President of Market

Development and Acqusitions Sean Haberer will be

detailing the latest developments in the company’s

mobile pipe coating technologies at Pipeline Coating

2012, which takes place in Vienna, Austria, between

27-29 February 2012.

A mobile field

joint system in

use at a

spoolbase

coating | mobile systems

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References[1] International Pipe Line and Offshore Contractors

Association (2011), Onshore Pipelines – The Road to

Success[2] Moscarello R, Kleinen P, Haberer S (2011), The Mobile Option, Oilfield Technology, August 2011[3] Popovici V (2009), Protecting Pipelines with Concrete, Concrete Engineering International, Volume 13, Number 4, Winter 2009