American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2015 - 113

SpecialReport: Tubulars Technology
high-impact, highly loaded and extreme
pressure applications common in oil and
gas," he comments.
TimkenSteel is spending $40 million
to build an advanced quench and temper
facility in Northeast Ohio with the capacity
to process 50,000 tons of 4-inch to 13inch bars and tubes annually, Seanor reports. He notes it will be in Perry Township, on the site of TimkenSteel's Gambrinus Steel Plant and near three thermal
treatment facilities.
According to Seanor, the facility will
provide pipe for demanding applications.
"As operators go deeper, they are encountering higher temperatures and pressures
that call for heavy-wall, long-length material
with a high tensile strength. At the same
time, the pipe needs fit-for-purpose properties
such as corrosion resistance," he says.
"The thicker the pipe wall, the more
difficult it is to provide those mechanical
properties from the outer to the inner diameter. It takes state-of-the-art equipment
and good inner diameter and outer diameter quenching in tandem, which is exactly
what the facility provides," Seanor explains.

In many demanding applications,
Seanor says TimkenSteel's products can
displace more highly alloyed materials,
such as 15 percent chromes, which are
much more expensive.
The company has opened a 20,000
square-foot R&D facility at its Canton,
Oh., headquarters, which features a scanning electronic microscope, an ultrasonic
lab, a physical process modeling laboratory, and a corrosion lab, Seanor updates,
adding that the equipment allows the
company to test steel and find inclusions
one hundredth the width of a hair.
"The end result is an ability to very
consistently produce extremely clean
steel. That fundamental is key to controlling manufacturing processes and
matching products to what customers
want," he says. "At the same time, we
can develop new products to stay one
step ahead of their needs."
Long-Life Coiled Tubing
Coiled tubing can be an excellent tool
for performing completions, but with traditional manufacturing processes, high
strength grades of CT have higher risk

of failure when exposed to the pressures
common in hydraulic fracturing, says
Jorge Mitre, the managing director of
coiled tubing for Tenaris.
"Horizontal well completions often
call for coiled tubing strings as long as
20,000 feet," he notes. "To reach that
length, the manufacturer must weld as
many as twenty strips end to end, but
stress around welds can be very damaging
to the performance of the pipe.
"To extend the life of the coiled tubing
string, we made a substantial change in
the production process," Mitre relates.
"In the past, we would buy high-strength
steel from a mill and heat it to weld the
strips together. The heat would turn the
steel into liquid, destroying the metallurgical structures that gave the metal its
strength and creating weak points. Today,
we bring in more basic steel, weld and
form it into the desired geometry, and
heat treat it to provide the required metallurgical properties."
This process is the key behind Tenaris'
BLUECOILTM coiled tubing, which Mitre
says is much stronger and longer-lived than
traditional CT grades. "For a similar appli-

The Permian Basin's unforgiving, rugged, hell-on-earth environment
demands a line pipe engineered tough from the inside out. With its 1,000foot coils, Raptor™ nylon pipe unloads and installs fast on your schedule
with your preferred crew. And its improved impact resistance, abrasion
resistance and ability to take up to 180°F of continuous heat, make it
the time and money-saving hero of the Permian. See for yourself at

PERMIANPIPE.COM

American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2015