Arabian Pipes Company (APC), which is working on three important projects including the development of a submerged arc welded (Saw) longitudinal pipe facility in Dammam, gained a big boost to its global status when it won a contract recently to supply high-pressure steel pipes for an Egyptian project.

Under the contract, APC is to supply more than 110km of longitudinally welded high-pressure steel pipes that are certified by the American Petroleum Institute. The pipes will be delivered to Egypt's Petroject. APC said it won the contract amidst strong competition from several international specialised companies.

"As part of Egypt's current petroleum development plan, this vital project will enhance the reliability of Arabian industry, which has, within a record time been able to assume a global status and to prove its efficiency in assessing and meeting local market requirements," APC said in a statement. "The Bani Suwaif-Attibbain products pipeline will mark years of co-operation during which the Arabian Pipe Company has supplied pipes for land and marine pipelines to several major oil and natural gas companies operating in the Arab Republic of Egypt."

In 1996, APC began producing longitudinally welded steel pipes of 6 inches to 20 inches by means of ERW (electric resistance welding) and according to appropriate international standards. "Within a short period of five years, APC was able to meet the local market requirements and to have a strong presence in the Gulf, Arabian and international markets," the company said.

The three new projects APC is looking at mark a fresh wave of major new investments in its facilities in Saudi Arabia.

In addition to the Dammam facility, which will produce 16" to 60" state-of-the-art submerged arch welded pipes in a joint venture with a European firm, APC plans to integrate by March a fusion-bonded epoxy (FBE) coating line into its operations. The new line will come as a joint venture with a Hong Kong-based corrosion-coating specialist Yadong Anticorrosive coating Limited.

And a third project will see it install a fifth annealer for seam heat treatment at its existing ERW facility in Riyadh.

By the third quarter of 2002, APC will have a one-stop facility for casing pipe in a joint venture with a qualified company to provide a full line of casing products, in particular 18 5/8" casing for Saudi Aramco.

The upgrades are part of a proactive approach of introducing new products to the company's range. Since its establishment in 1996, APC has invested large sums on new equipment to improve productivity and product quality for some of the Middle East's leading oil and gas companies. Indeed, ISO9001-certified APC meets stringent Saudi Aramco specifications for ERW pipe (SAMSS-332), and was the first company to be approved for the specification in 2000. APC has already supplied one million feet of SAMSS-332 pipes to Saudi Aramco in both sour and non-sour applications.

It is now gearing up to meet SAMSS-333 accreditation. This specification is for high-pressure gas, wet and sour service. The addition of the Strip Edge Milling Machine, which was installed last September at a cost of SR 6 million, means APC now meets all the requirements for the manufacture of SAMSS-333 pipe, and APC hopes to use the excellent results from its recent half million feet SAMSS-332 order to support its aim of being the only qualified supplier.

The new specifications being demanded by Saudi Aramco bring together the current 'world best' manufacturing practices and methods and the highest testing requirements applicable for line pipe.

The specifications also break new ground in the assurance of quality by stipulating that all pipe is manufactured using qualified parameters which are proven to give a manufacturing window which ensures an optimum weld, and that continuous electronic process control and statistical process control in place guarantees that any pipe that is produced outside these qualified parameters is automatically identified and immediately segregated.

APC's existing facilities comprise a strip Edge Milling machine, which covers the full range of APC products from 6" to 20" in diameter and 3.2mm to 16mm wall thickness in grades up to X70. The Edge Milling machine enables APC to serve major oil and gas companies for their severe pipe applications, providing uniform metal flow angles, improved hardness results on the weld area and reduced instances of weld defects.

The company currently operates four seam annealers. The fourth was delivered earlier in 2001 and offers significant productivity improvements.

The 500kW capacity annealer increases the total seam heat treatment capacity to 2000 kW, and the additional heating power allows APC to both increase manufacturing speeds while ensuring that the weld heat affected zone is fully normalised.

The improved metallurgical structure due to the additional heating ensures that even on products with high wall thickness the weld seam is homogenous with the base metal. The resulting weld area has consistent through-hardness, reduced grain size and improved impact results and meets the most stringent testing requirements employed for quality line pipe, according to the company.

APC recently upgraded its automatic Ultrasonic Inspection systems with the assistance of its long-term supplier and world leader in its field, Krautkramer (Germany).

All of its state of the art machines are now based around the Krautkramer USIP20 and are equipped with automatic alarms, paint sprays and recording facilities.

APC carries out static and dynamic calibration to the most stringent standards and its highly trained and experienced NDT staff are all certified to ASNT Level 2.

APC also recently installed and commissioned two automatic paint-marking machines supplied by Numtech Interstahl of Austria.

Both machines have been installed to improve productivity and product traceability, are both PC-based and interface directly with the APC Manufacturing Information System (MIS) to transfer pipe data and also with the automatic pipe length and weight measurement system.

The Dot Paint (DP) Marking Machine is a computer-controlled two-axis manipulator, which is used to identify the pipe with its unique number immediately after it is cut from the coil.

The Paint Jet Machine utilises a state-of-the-art fully automated multi-axis industrial robot machine to mark the Customer Information (Stencil) on each pipe. The machine can perform both inside and outside surface marking and can mark up to 10 lines of information within 45 seconds.

APC currently has a production capacity of 164,000 tonnes per year of ERW line pipe for application in industries including oil, gas and chemicals.

Since commercial production began at the start of 1996, APC has grown into a major pipe supplier to Middle East markets. The company currently exports 43 per cent of its output, a figure which is expected to rise to 60 per cent next year, according to the company. The UAE, Yemen and Egypt have been identified as particular target markets for APC.