Thermotite® ULTRA™ is a novel styrenic-based wet insulation pipe coating introduced by Bredero Shaw to address these challenges, delivering optimal performance in any depth of water for operating temperatures up to 120˚C. Compared to the commodity polypropylene systems, Thermotite® ULTRA™ offers improved insulation properties at a reduced insulation layer thickness, extending cool-down period and improving seabed stability in flowlines. It also contains no glass microspheres, eliminating the risk of decreased thermal performance due to glass breakage which can come into play with GsPU and sPP coatings.
Over the past three years, ULTRAâ„¢ coatings and field joints have been installed on projects in the Gulf of Mexico and the Barents Sea.
With a view to bringing the products’ benefits to coating clients in the Asia Pacific region, the Thermotite® ULTRAâ„¢ pipe coating product family – including field joints – was put through a DnV-witnessed and verified process and production validation trial at the Bredero Shaw coating facility in Kuantan, Malaysia last year. This trial was conducted in accordance with the requirements of various industrial standards and specifications (DnV, Shell, Chevron, and WEL) for flow assurance applications.
A 120°C 200 bar Simulated Service Vessel test was completed at the ShawCor Subsea Test Facility, where a 28-day testing exposure confirmed the U-value with no coating cracks, voids, disbondment or discoloration.
The successful qualification of ULTRAâ„¢ line pipe and field joint coatings to 120°C is but one example supporting Bredero Shaw’s new Complete Coating Assurance model – an approach which combines both line pipe and field joint coating to ensure coating integrity across the entire pipeline.
The company also added IMPP bend coating in Kuantan, Malaysia, last year and is building a regional offshore Centre of Excellence for field joint/custom coating capability to provide Australian, Indonesian, Malaysian and other Asia Pacific customers with a suite of wet insulation solutions including injection moulded polypropylene, injection moulded polyurethane, injection moulded Thermotite® ULTRAâ„¢, as well as Thermotite® Nemoâ„¢ and Thermotite® Nemo+â„¢ – the industry’s newest insulation materials that can be applied using standard casting equipment and which show excellent results in hot, wet ageing at up to 120°C.
As well, Bredero Shaw recently began production coating at its new multi-layered thermal insulation coating facility at the Kabil plant in Batam, Indonesia, to support local insulation customers and other projects requiring coating on pipe sections up to 18 m long.
With these capabilities, Bredero Shaw can offer its clients every step of the insulated pipeline coating process from engineering the advanced coatings, designing and validating the solution, to line pipe coating application and field joint installation through a single highly capable and accountable source for reduced schedule and performance risk.
For more information visit www.brederoshaw.com