A sign that business is booming in Saudi Arabia is a major expansion project being undertaken by Group Five Pipe Saudi, a company based in Dammam, in the kingdom’s Eastern Region.

The company is boosting its production capacity by more than 150 per cent, from the current level of 130,000 tonnes per year (tpy) to 350,000 tpy. Work on the upgrade has been going on for some time and is scheduled for completion by mid-2006. Group Five Pipe Saudi makes spiral pipes of outside diameter (OD) ranging from 20 to 120 inches with sour and non-sour applications in the oil and gas sector as well as in other fields.
Group Five Pipe Saudi Arabia is a joint venture between Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al Qahtani & Sons Group of Companies (Tareq Abdel Hadi Al Qahtani & Brothers) and Group Five Pipe of South Africa (GFPS), which is well recognised as a manufacturer of carbon steel large-diameter spirally welded pipes.
The factory was commissioned in June 2001 and there has been no capacity upgrade since then. “The new expansion should be good for another eight years,” says general manager Salah Aqaad. The company sees great possibilities in Saudi Arabia’s industrialisation drive and, indeed, for that matter in the rest of the Gulf region, where high oil prices have spurred great investments in the energy field as well as in general construction, including commercial and residential projects. The pipes that Group Five Pipe Saudi makes are suitable for transporting water, oil and gas, piling, offshore structures and in the construction of various structures including bridges.
“We have plans to diversify into ERW pipes and longitudinal well pipes for the oil and gas industries in the next five years because the energy situation is booming in Saudi Arabia and also in neighbouring Qatar,” he says.
Anticipating the upgraded capacity that will materialise in mid-2006, the company recently signed a five-year reserve capacity contract with Saudi Aramco, which means it will dedicate a portion of its production to the oil giant.  Saudi Aramco is not a new client as already it is the single biggest buyer of Group Five Pipe Saudi’s products.
Currently the company supplies 70 per cent of its production within Saudi Arabia, leaving 30 per cent for mainly the GCC states. However, in one of its recent contracts, it supplied pipes to Iraq through a Halliburton contract.
“To utilise some of the additional capacity, we are in touch with Japanese companies who will need pipes for their Gulf contracts,” said Aqaad.
The company’s pipes use carbon steel coils and have a steel thickness ranging from 5 mm to 25 mm and lengths of up to 80 ft (24 m). They are manufactured to European, API 5L, AWWA, Saudi Aramco, NACE and other international standards and produced from steel grades from API 5L Gr-B to API 5L Grade X70
State-of-the-art automated welding systems are employed to the manufacturing process, thus further enhancing product quality control.
After the strip is uncoiled it proceeds to Edge Milling Unit, then to the forming section to form the pipe into spiral (helical) shape. The pipe is submerged arc welded (SAW) automatically and continuously, internally and externally, before being cut to the desired length. Beveiling operation is done for both sides prior to field joining.
The technical staff is made up of experienced engineers and technicians with an eye on quality, safety and reliability, the company says.
“Group Five Pipe Saudi commits itself to a policy of total quality assurance and has the ISO 9001 qualification. It is licensed to apply the American Petroleum Institute monogram API 5L to its manufactured products,” says the company. “The list of approvals continues to increase in recognition of GFPS’ commitment to quality, Aramco approval and other international standards.”
In its pursuit of quality, Group Five Pipe Saudi subjects its products to several tests including incoming material inspection; plate body ultrasonic testing; body ultrasonic testing; in-process inspection, magnetic particle inspection; destructive inspection; hydrostatic testing; weld seam ultrasonic testing and radiographic testing (X-Ray).
  The pipes are suitable for transporting water, oil and gas, piling, offshore structures and in the construction of various structures including bridges.