coatings

Industry need for mobile pipe

coating technologies
by Vlad Popovici, Marketing Manager, Bredero Shaw, Toronto, Canada

Most of the worlds gathering and transmission pipelines are built using steel pipe and the industry has
dedicated a lot of resources to protect the pipe against any potential causes that could lead to pipeline
failure. Various types of external coatings with multiple functional roles anti-corrosion protection,
mechanical protection, thermal insulation, buoyancy control have thus been developed.

hereas these coatings were

traditionally applied in fixed pipe
coating facilities, recent structural
changes in the global oil and gas sector have
created strong incentives for operators,
contractors and coating suppliers to use
mobile pipe coating technologies and
facilities. As these structural changes could
remain in place for the foreseeable future,
the pipe coating sector will probably move
fast toward a mixed model using both fixed
and mobile pipe coating facilities.

The fixed coating plant model

The traditional model for coating steel
pipe uses a fixed, specialised coating
facility often located at, or close to, a steel
pipe mill. Most of the steel pipe mills tend
to be relatively close to traditional oil and
gas producing regions where most of the
gathering and transmission pipelines used
to be installed. Some of the pipe mills
added basic pipe coating services usually
simple anti-corrosion coatings to their
steel pipe offering, directly competing
against specialised independent pipe
coaters. The pipe mills that did not offer
pipe coating services partnered with a
specialised independent pipe coating
supplier for coating the pipe before
transporting to the project right-of-way or to
a temporary storage yard in preparation for
onshore or offshore installation.
For more specialised coatings, such as
concrete-weight coatings or thermal
insulation coatings, the fixed coating plant
model meant that the coating facility was
installed as close as possible to the main
traditional oil and gas production regions,
such as the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico or
western Canada, betting on clusters of
pipeline coating projects able to sustain a
fixed facility for decades.
The fixed coating plant model works well
as long as there are a lot of pipeline projects
in the area covered by the fixed facility.

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The Brigden facility installed for a flow-assurance coating project.

However, the recent structural changes in the

oil and gas industry have uncovered the
limitations of this model.
As in many industrial markets, the
traditional oil and gas production regions have
attracted a lot of pipe mills and independent
coating suppliers, creating pipe coating
overcapacity situations in some regions that
are maturing, such as the North Sea. This has
increased the level of competition in these
regions and forced some coating suppliers to
under utilise their regional fixed facilities,
idle them with significant fixed costs or, in
some cases, shut them down entirely.
Some coating suppliers have turned to
exports to increase the utilisation rate of
their fixed plants. However, the specialised
coatings mentioned above do not travel well
over long distances, as they significantly
increase the overall logistic costs of the
pipeline project. This opens a pipe coating
supply gap in the new oil and gas production

frontiers, where the pipe coating volumes do

not yet justify the investment in a new fixed
pipe coating facility. Although these regions
can be covered by importing pipe and
coatings, the added project cost is
significant, especially as new production
frontiers are further and further away from
the traditional production regions.

Main drivers for increased plant

mobility
As discussed above, the traditional fixed
pipe coating plant has limitations that can
create supply gaps and/or significant project
cost increases. This has created a favourable
context for developing mobile pipe coating
technologies to complement the existing and
future fixed pipe coating facilities. This
context is expected to continue for the
foreseeable future due to the following two
major drivers:
Continued on page 34

Pipelines International | September 2012

coatings
Continued FROM page 32

Pipe coated with concrete in a mobile plant.

1. Remote frontier regions become increasingly

important oil and gas supply regions
Oil and gas fields are discovered and
developed further and further away from the
maturing production regions. These new
frontier regions, such as onshore and
offshore East Africa, United States shale
plays and some parts of the Arctic, do not yet
have and might never have enough
pipeline construction activity to justify the
investment in a fixed pipe coating plant.
Using mobile coating plants to serve some of
these frontier regions makes economic sense
for both the pipeline operators and for the
pipe coating suppliers. Thick and heavy
coatings mostly thermal insulation and
concrete-weight coatings reduce the
quantity of pipe that can be transported from
the pipe mill to the project location in one
trip and thus significantly increase the
logistic costs of the project.
2. Increasingly challenging production
environments increase the need for
specialised pipe coatings that can significantly
increase the pipe transportation costs
For example, offshore oil and gas
pipelines have to be coated with heavy
concrete to control the pipelines buoyancy
in shallow waters, while the ongoing drive to
deeper water exploration and production
increases the need for thermal insulation
pipe coatings. These specialised coatings
do not travel well, as they are either thick
and/or heavy, thus increasing the pipe
transportation costs. Moreover, the number
of projects that require buoyancy control or
thermal insulation pipe coatings in one
region does not usually justify the
investment in a fixed coating plant, creating
an incentive for both pipeline operators and
pipe coating suppliers to use a mobile
coating plant to execute these projects.

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Pipes coated in a portable plant with a multi-layer flow assurance system.

Other secondary drivers, such as the strict

local content requirements for oil and gas
projects in certain countries in South America
or west Africa, are creating further incentives
for using mobile pipe coating technologies.

Mobilising specialised pipe

coatings
Concrete-weight coatings and thermal
insulation coatings benefit most from being
applied in mobile pipe coating facilities.
Concrete-weight coatings have been
developed and used during the last four
decades to control the buoyancy of offshore
pipelines installed in shallow waters.
To address the high transportation costs
and complex logistics of concrete coated

pipe, Bredero Shaw has continuously

improved its side wrap concrete coating
process and developed the first portable
plant for concrete coatings. Today, the
equipment of a mobile concrete coating
plant can be loaded in 812 standard 6 m
containers and the mobile plant can be up
and running within two weeks of arrival
onsite. It can be configured for applying
concrete-weight coatings for offshore
pipelines on a wide range of pipe from
1681,200 mm outer diameter.
After being demobilised, every
component of the plant is repaired and
refurbished in a centre of excellence located
in Texas, US, to exacting standards. Bredero
Shaws mobile concrete coating plants have

Pipelines International | September 2012

coatings

Using mobile coating plants to serve some of these

frontier regions makes economic sense for both the
pipeline operators and for the pipe coating suppliers.

successfully completed more than 200

projects with concrete-weight coatings for
more than 150 customers. The mobile
concrete coating plants have been mobilised
in over 50 locations around the world and
the list continues to grow.
Addressing the high transportation costs
and complex logistics of thermally insulated
pipe, Brigden is an innovative modular
portable plant concept developed by Bredero
Shaw for applying a wide range of anticorrosion and flow-assurance pipe coatings
using proven, best in class process
technology while delivering the same quality
and output as a fixed plant. The plants
innovative design also includes automatedend finishing using advanced robotics.
Brigden is a turnkey coating facility
assembled from process modules delivered
in specially-designed shipping containers
that are ISO certified. The plant can be
assembled onsite in approximately eight
weeks. While the standard plant
configuration includes fusion-bonded epoxy
and three-layer anti-corrosion coatings, as
well as extruded side wrap insulation
coatings, additional modules can also be
added to facilitate the application of any
flow-assurance and anti-corrosion pipe
coating system.
A Brigden mobile plant has the same
production capability as a fixed plant.
Brigden is capable of coating pipe with an
outer diameter of 2201,066 mm and lengths
of 10.424.4 m. The plant comes fully
equipped with integrated facilities for raw
materials storage, facility maintenance, and
quality control and testing.
All phases of the Brigden coating
operation, including surface preparation,
pre-heat, coating application and final
inspection can be conducted in an enclosed
area of 1,700 sq m. A total area of 1.2 ha is
needed to setup the entire facility, excluding
pipe storage requirements.

Benefits of mobile coating

facilities
Using mobile pipe coating facilities for
new pipeline projects offers benefits for all
stakeholder categories. The pipeline
operators get the same guaranteed coating
quality anywhere in the world while

Pipelines International | September 2012

simplifying the project logistics, avoiding

significant additional logistic costs for pipe
transportation, and increasing the local
content of the project. The communities
where the mobile coating plants are
mobilised benefit as local people are hired to
operate the plants, and the auxiliary rolling
stock required for the coating operations
cranes, trucks and front-end loaders are
sourced locally.
Finally, mobile coating facilities allow
the pipe coating suppliers to optimise the
utilisation of their asset base by increasing
the utilisation rate of the coating plants. A
mobile coating plant can be easily moved to
a new location in case no more coating
projects are available in the region where the
plant was initially installed.
To provide a better understanding of the
benefits of using mobile pipe coating plants,
below are some recent projects.
A pipeline operator wanted to install a
mechanical protection concrete-based
coating system on more than 100 km of a
pipeline project in the Asia-Pacific region.
The closest fixed coating facility offering that
type of specialised coating was in western
Canada, approximately 11,500 km away, and
far from any ocean port. Bredero Shaw

therefore mobilised two mobile concrete

plants that could apply the required coating
in the Asia-Pacific region, significantly
reducing the pipe transportation costs and
simplifying the project logistics.
In another recent example, concreteweight coatings were required on a
pipeline to be installed offshore eastern
Canada to control the pipelines buoyancy.
The 14,000 joints of pipe with 560 mm outer
diameter needed an average of 80 mm of
heavy concrete coating. However, the closest
fixed concrete coating plant was located
4,500 km from the pipeline installation
location. A mobile concrete coating plant
was mobilised only 250 km from the
installation location, providing multiple
benefits to the pipeline operator such as
simplified pipe logistics and significantly
lower pipe transportation costs.
Finally, a recent project in the Gulf of
Mexico required the coating of 50 mm
thermal insulation coating for 8,000 pipe
joints with a 273.1 mm outer diameter.
Although the closest fixed coating plant
offering the required thermal insulation
coating was only 400 km away from the pipe
mill that produced the pipe in Europe,
coated pipe would have taken 37 per cent
more space on the ship than bare pipe and
costs would have increased quickly over the
9,000 km to the pipe destination in the US,
as less pipe would have been transported in
one trip. Instead, pipe was shipped from
Europe uncoated and insulated by a Bredero
Shaw mobile coating plant located very close
to the pipes final destination.

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