Gulf Construction Online - SSP commissions new bending line

Pipes & Fittings

The new induction bending equipment at SPP's factory.

SSP commissions new bending line

01 August 2002

Saudi Steel Pipe Company (SSP) says it has recently successfully commissioned induction bending equipment at its factory in Dammam's Second Industrial City in Saudi Arabia.

This new service has a capacity for hot bending pipe in diameters from 3 through to 42 inches with wall thickness up to 100 mm. Pipe of any manufactured type, such as SAW, SML, ERW and HFI, is suitable for bending to any angle, or combination of angles, as specified for the application.

Additionally, the equipment is not restricted to bending steel pipe. Any carbon or alloy steel, aluminium, or other metallic material can be hot bent including bar stock, extruded shapes and beams. The equipment is not restricted to a single conventional bend of 30, 45, or 90 degrees in a single two-dimensional profile. Three-dimensional bends are easily accomplished, says a spokesman for the company.

SSP has long been recognised as a premier manufacturer of welded steel pipe in the Middle East. The company operates two manufacturing facilities with a combined capacity of 160,000 tonnes and has been in continuous production since its start-up in 1980. It is a joint venture between Saudi entrepreneurs Rabiah & Nassar Company, Al Khorayef Sons Company and Fahd Mohammad Al-Saja and South Korea's Shinho Steel Company.

SSP has enjoyed steady growth since its inception and has successfully satisfied many needs within the Kingdom, and across 20 export markets, for high-quality welded steel pipe. It markets its products through its main sales offices in Dammam, Riyadh, Jeddah and Qassim and through its network of distributors in Saudi Arabia, other Gulf, Arab and neighbouring states and places as far as the US and Canada.

The more recent addition to its manufacturing capabilities was the 1999 commissioning of a plant to produce 6 to 16-inch HFI welded steel pipe for the Middle East's oil and gas industry. This mill is considered to be the most modern such facility in the Middle East. In this facility, SSP produces API 5L GrB-X65 welded steel line pipe in wall thickness up to 15.9 mm.

"As a testimony to superior product and process performance, the company won the seal of approval from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and Underwriters Laboratories in the US as well as approvals by Saudi Aramco and the Royal Commission," the spokesman says. "The company has been an ISO-certified manufacturer since 1995 and its products meet or exceed the requirements of Ansi, BS (British Standards), JIS, and Saso. The move to API and related-industry standards was seen as a natural progression by the management of SSP.

"SSP took a bold technological leap forward with the startup of this state-of-the-art plant that moved the company into API 5L in support of the oil and gas industry," the spokesman continues. "After careful study of the available technologies, the company chose a solid state HFI welding technology for the manufacture of 80,000 tonnes of 4 to 16-inch product across the full range of APl grades and wall thickness.

"SSP's new factory was designed and engineered by DMS, France, with the technical assistance of Shinho. At the heart of the system is a solid state high-frequency induction-welding system provided by Elva Induksjon, which incorporates a sophisticated Continuous Electronic Process Control System to continually monitor the critical components of the welding process. This and many other advanced technologies are aimed at ensuring that the products from the mill are of the highest quality and reliability.

"Though the primary objective for the products of this new facility is to service the needs of the oil and gas industry, it is expected that SSP will meet and exceed the demands of ASTM A53 (Grades A and B and BS 1387) in meeting a wide variety of water, water well casing, structural, commercial, piling and construction needs."

SSP's commitment to product reliability begins with precise documentation of raw materials and continues through each step of manufacturing to a finished product staged for shipment.

"Each and every size, grade and wall thickness of pipe is tracked electronically (by computer) through 10 stages of production. Within the system a wide range of reports are available as part of conformance to API and ISO documentation requirements and individual customer's needs," the spokesman says.

Beyond material traceability, another vital element of process control is monitoring and controlling critical variables in the welding process itself.

SSP has also invested heavily into building a world-class metallurgical laboratory with all the tools essential for both innovative product development and comprehensive product quality testing and evaluation.

''A team of experienced engineers and technicians is on hand to provide technical support to both customers and SSP's production group. Among the tools at their disposal is a full-range spectrometer for chemical analysis of raw materials and pipe product. Additionally, a state-of-the-art universal testing machine allows for an array of bending, tensile, elongation and flattening tests. The lab also performs Charpy impact tests, metallurgical examinations and an assortment of other tests, including HIC (hydrogen induced cracking) and SSCC (sulfide stress cracking corrosion) evaluations, in accordance with industry or customer specifications,'' he says.

Applications for large-diameter pipes range across a number of industries and include liquid and gas hydrocarbons, water and other liquids, steam, compressed air and other gases, well casing, pump column pipes, piling industrial frames, structures, space frames, light poles, airport and large structures and transmission lines towers.

The company also makes scaffolding tubes and carbon steel tubes for light structural and other general purposes as well as square and rectangular pipes and commercial grade steel tubes suitable for screwing to BS21 pipe threads.

The applications for commercial pipes are steel furniture, hand-rails, ceilings, water irrigation and nipples, fences, trolleys and dairy houses.

SSP made a significant contribution to Kingdom Centre in Riyadh, providing some 50 km of pipes of different sizes for a variety of uses. From basement to topmost floor, its maximum safety rigid steel conduit pipes and carbon steel pipes curl through Kingdom Centre to provide safety and transmission.

The threaded conduit pipes - made of hot-dipped galvanised rigid steel to the level of Ansi (American National Standard Institute) C80. 1-1994/UL-6 - accommodate cables for the building's electrical system and grant protection against possible fire hazards and physical abuse. They are also claimed to offer more resistance to corrosion than any other metallic conduits.