Group Five Pipe Saudi Ltd has placed an order with Schuler for the delivery of a complete pipe plant. At its heart is an offline spiral pipe line for manufacturing pipes with diameters of 508 to 2,235 mm (20 to 88 inches) and lengths of 12 to 24.4 m. In addition, the pipe plant boasts four welding stands and various testing stations. The contract was signed in Dammam (Saudi Arabia) at the beginning of March.

With a production speed of 10 m per minute, the new plant easily outperforms the conventional spiral pipe plants previously used by Group Five Pipe Saudi. “Our customer will be increasing its capacity by up to 400,000 tonnes per year,” explains Jochen Früh, managing director at Schuler. “We are not only building and supplying the complete plant with all peripheral equipment, but will also fully install it and launch production over the course of the coming year.”

Large pipes are made from high-grade steel (up to X100) with thickness of up to 25.4 mm, which is wound onto coils. The spiral pipe line forms this material into the desired shape and diameter and tack welds the seams. At one of the four welding stands, the pipe is then welded into its final shape at speeds of up to 2.50 m per minute using a submerged arc-welding process. In accordance with the API standard, pipes are subsequently checked using ultrasonic devices, x-rays and a hydrotester. The entire pipe plant has a length of 450 m.

Group Five Pipe Saudi was founded in 2001 and is based in Dammam. The TÜV-certified company belongs to the AHQ & Sons Group of Companies and has four sites where large pipes are produced according to the highest quality standard of the American Petroleum Institute (API). Its customers include companies in the gas and oil industry, such as Halliburton, Saipem and Saudi Aramco, as well as the Saline Water Conversion Corporation, which produces drinking water for Saudi Arabia, and the German pump manufacturer KSB.

Group Five Pipe Saudi’s pipes serve the oil and gas sector, the fresh and saline water transportation and related connections sector and the construction and building sector.

Plant production started in early June 2001 with an annual production capacity of 67,000 tonnes of carbon steel pipes which was subsequently expanded to 135,000 tonnes of iron pipes per year.

“The plant has benefited from the expertise of pioneering parties in the field of manufacturing and processing of pipes,” a company statement says. “The first party is Abdel Hadi Abdullah Al Qahtani & Sons Group of Companies whose experience extends to more than half a century and were, and still are, pioneers in the field of supply and coating of pipes. The second party is Group Five Pipe Company, which is a pioneer in the field of manufacture of carbon steel pipes in South Africa. The plant uses the expertise of these two pioneers in order to achieve group integrity and satisfy the needs of local and Arab markets in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”