Not long ago, hydraulic fracturing was a creative approach that shifted the momentum of oil-and-gas market. Now, a new manufacturing operation is taking a creative approach of its own, and expects to establish a new value proposition for some of the oil-and-gas sector’s most critical materials.
MesoCoat Inc. has started producing interior-clad seamless pipe for oil-and-gas processing, using a process called CermaClad™ to seal the pipes with a wear- and corrosion-resistant material. Crude oil corrodes the interior surface of the pipe used to transport it, requiring the energy companies to replace the pipe at a rate that runs into trillions of dollars, according to market studies.
CermaClad technology uses a high-intensity light source – described by the developer as “an artificial sun captured in a reflector” — to fuse metal and cermet coatings to the steel pipes’ interiors. The process can be used on plate and bar material, too.
The new Cleveland-area plant has a single line in operation, but MesoCoat noted its process is 15X to 100X faster than weld cladding or laser cladding. The speed of the CermaClad coating process matches the line speed of steel mills, and as such can reduce lead times for clad pipes 75-80%, according to MesoCoat
The new pipe coating line has been two years in development, and MesoCoat’s parent Abakan Inc. said it has production capacity sufficient to produce $60 million/year worth of clad pipes.
The availability of the corrosion-resistant pipe should appeal to domestic resource companies drilling and processing shale gas and other reserves. MesoCoat also expects its pipes will offer an economical and environmentally sound alternative for developers of sour oil and gas reserves, including pre-salt developments in Brazil and West Africa, deep water projects in the Gulf of Mexico, and gas projects in Southeast Asia.
R&D with EWI
Recently, MesoCoat’s struck a development agreement with EWI, the welding process research center, to help accelerate manufacturing scale-up for CermaClad operations. EWI’s welding expertise, simulation skills, and controls development services is supporting development of manufacturing process specifications and NDT procedures for MesoCoat. These efforts will be followed by efforts to expand bimetallic pipe welding and joining process qualification.
Of the current plant, MesoCoat said its high-speed large-area fusion-cladding technology produces high-quality finished products at significantly lower capital and fixed costs than the alternative processes.
"Our new facility enables us to demonstrate continuous, automated production of 12-meter pipe segments,” CEO Andrew Sherman explained, “and it is a major milestone toward realizing our mission to offer cost-effective life-of-asset protection in an effort to reduce the estimated $2.2 trillion wasted worldwide as a result of preventable corrosion and wear."
"The completion of our first clad-pipe manufacturing plant is just one of the several important milestones we are completing this year, according to Abakan CEO Robert Miller. “It will enable the validation of our economic and production models that are the basis of the growth projected by the Abakan team for metallurgically clad pipe.
“Although the Ohio plant is smallest in terms of production capacity compared to planned clad pipe manufacturing facilities in other parts of the world,” Miller continued, “this plant is extremely critical as the pathfinder for full qualification and market entry of 12-meter CermaClad seamless clad pipes.”
