In its bid to meet the highest standards for exacting clients in Saudi Arabia, Middle East & Africa and Western Asia region, Arabian Pipes Company (APC) is now embarking on a fresh wave of major new investments at its facilities in the Kingdom.

Three important projects are under way to reinforce APC's position as the leading high frequency pipe manufacturer and innovator in Saudi Arabia.

The company is drawing up plans for a new 16" to 60" state-of-the-art Submerged Arc Welded (SAW) longitudinal pipe facility in Dammam in a joint venture with a well-known European firm.

By March, APC will also integrate a fusion-bonded epoxy (FBE) coating line into its operations. The new line will be as a joint venture with a Hong Kong-based corrosion-coating specialist Yadong Anticorrosive Coating Ltd.

And a third project will see APC install a fifth annealer for seam heat treatment at its existing Electric Resistance Welded (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 last year. APC has already supplied one million feet of SAMSS-332 pipes to Saudi Aramco in both sour and non-sour applications.

APC 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 in September this year 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 this year 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.

APC recently won a contract from a major oil and gas company in Egypt to supply 115 km of high quality steel pipes.

The high-grade pipes will be used for a gas pipeline from Al Tebeen to Beni Sweif, the company has said. Project completion is expected next year.

APC products are already approved by the majority of oil and gas operators in Egypt, and the company has executed several prestigious projects in the Egyptian market during the course of this year.