New Coatings In The Pipeline

New Coatings In The Pipeline

Illawarra Mercury

Tuesday October 5, 1999

By RON TINDALL

NSW Premier Bob Carr will officially open APC Socotherm Pty Ltd's pipecoating plant at Kembla Grange on November 13.

The company's total outlay by start-up time will be close to $9 million for land, buildings, office accommodation, state-of-the-art machinery and establishment funds.

Among the 35 staff signed on during construction and installation who will remain as part of the operational team are Bomaderry's Gary George (engineering manager) and Dapto's Bruce Morris (accountant).

Mr George spent 15 years in Sydney working in petro-chemical, oil and gas industries, while Mr Morris left a major Sydney organisation so he could work close to home.

The opening will cap a decade of planning by general manager Frank Whelan.

Mr Whelan said the plant initially will run one shift with a second shift, involving a further 25 employees depending on the success of the company's bids for coming projects.

APC Socotherm will give Australian industry a second choice of pipecoating systems. The company is using European systems and technology.

The plant is strategically placed to take raw pipe from the BHP Oil and Gas (formerly Tubemakers) Kembla Grange plant which is supplying some of the pipe for the 800km Bass Strait to Port Kembla and Sydney natural gas pipeline.

APC Socotherm has installed machinery which can handle oil, gas and water pipes up to 1.5m diameter, up to 18m long and with wall thicknesses of up to 30mm.

Its production ``train" has been designed to handle not only external coatings using three varieties of coating systems but also to be expanded to handle internal linings and specialised external coatings.

Three Italian engineers, led by project engineer Mikey Ravazzini, worked with Socotherm's Australian team on plant installation and commissioning.

Mr Ravazzini, who has been with Socotherm for 30 years, has been involved in setting up pipeline coating plants in Indonesia, Nigeria, Taiwan, Greece, Malaysia and China.

Mr Whelan is positioning the new company to bid for lateral pipeline projects across Australia as well as for the $3.7 billion pipeline now being planned to deliver gas from a major Papua-New Guinea oil field to Gladstone and possibly ultimately Brisbane.