almost all the new steel pipelines built today worldwide ... pipeline coating technologies to help...
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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
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