New Pipe Plant Uses High-Tech Cladding Process
MesoCoat’s new production facility will produce up to $60 million of clad pipe for use in upstream oil and gas production. The plant is the first facility worldwide to use the company’s CermaClad process, which coats pipe surfaces with corrosion-resistant alloy (CRA), wear resistant alloy, cermet, ceramic and metal powders.
MesoCoat Opens Manufacturing Facility in Euclid, Ohio
According to estimates by the International Energy Agency, more than 70 percent of the world’s remaining oil and gas reserves are highly corrosive. To address this concern, a new player in corrosion resistant pipe manufacturing has opened a new facility to service the booming oil and gas industry in Ohio and the surrounding region. MesoCoat, a subsidiary of Miami-based Abakan Inc., cut the ribbon on the single-line metal cladding plant in Euclid, Ohio, on April 26.
Using a technology called CermaClad, which uses a high-intensity light source to rapidly fuse protective cladding material onto steel pipe (both internal and external surfaces), MesoCoat’s new facility has the capacity to produce up to $60 million of clad pipe for use in upstream oil and gas production. This plant is the first production facility worldwide that will use the CermaClad process, which coats pipe surfaces with corrosion-resistant alloy (CRA), wear resistant alloy, cermet, ceramic and metal powders.
The location of the facility near Cleveland allows MesoCoat to become part of the supply chain the Marcellus and Utica shale, said MesoCoat CEO Andrew Sherman. The new plant is capable of producing $70 million in clad pipe annually, and is thought to be one of the largest clad pipe manufacturing plants in the world in terms of production capacity.
“We aim to paint the world in stainless steel to stop corrosion,” he said.
The plant will also help stimulate the local economy by providing highly skilled manufacturing jobs, Sherman added. The facility currently employs 55 people. Following a ribbon-cutting ceremony and remarks by company leaders, industry partners and elected officials, attendees had an opportunity to tour the facility and see the high-intensity arc lamp used in the CermaClad process.
MesoCoat CEO Andrew Sherman (left) and Abakan CEO Robert Miller cut the ribbon on a new metal cladding facility in Euclid, Ohio. The single-line pipe plant will supply the booming oil and gas shale plays in the Northeast United States.
“Our new facility enables us to demonstrate continuous, automated production of 12-meter pipe segments,” Sherman said, “and is a major milestone towards 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 plant in Euclid will pave the way for other CermaClad production facilities around the world, according to Robert Miller, CEO of Abakan, who invested $6 million in the MesoCoat facility.
“The completion of our first clad pipe manufacturing plant is just one of the several important milestones we are completing this year. 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,” Miller said. “Although the Ohio plant is smallest in terms of production capacity compared to planned clad pipe manufacturing facilities in other parts of the world, this plant is extremely critical as the pathfinder for full qualification and market entry of 12-meter CermaClad seamless clad pipes.”
Client approval through the facility will allow Abakan and its subsidiaries to enter the multibillion-dollar global market for clad pipe, added Miller, who said he believes MesoCoat’s corrosion-resistant clad pipes will offer the most economical and environmentally sound alternative for the development of sour oil and gas reserves, including, pre-salt developments in Brazil and West Africa, deep water projects in the Gulf of Mexico and the massive gas projects in Southeast Asia.
MesoCoat’s CermaClad process offers 40 times higher productivity compared to current metallurgical cladding technologies, enables three to six times longer life for metal assets and improves metallurgical and mechanical properties at the lowest lifecycle cost, according to a company release.
Sherman hailed Northeast Ohio’s rich heritage of manufacturing as a primary motivator for locating MesoCoat just a few miles east of downtown Cleveland, where steel and auto plants once thrived.
In addition to Sherman and Miller, speakers at the ribbon-cutting ceremony included Joe H. Payer, Ph.D., a corrosion expert and one of the University of Akron’s lead scientists; Nicole Kostura, regional liaison to the Ohio Gov. John Kasich; state Senator Nina Turner (District 24) and state Senator Tom Patton (District 25).
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