TPT May 2013

Technology News

New machinery moves company forward 30 years

pressure vessel welders with experience to match is next to impossible, even though they are some of our highest paid tradesmen. The reason: these welders might have the toughest job in the plant.” Armed with tape measures, jigs, chalk lines and acetylene torches, pressure vessel welders and fitters typically layout their work by hand, and manually perform a job as critical to the success of the sub-assembly as it is difficult to perform. Working in, on and all around the circumference of large cylinders in awkward positions, sometimes even on their backs, these welders are responsible for positioning extremely accurate hole locations and then cutting exact hole sizes with critical tolerances.

times through scrubbers. Pressure vessel tanks are used for compressing and scrubbing (or cleaning) the gases. Enerflex customers range from small local oil and gas companies to the world’s biggest names in oil and gas delivery, including Shell and Imperial Oil. With such a wide range of customers, Enerflex routinely delivers an equally wide range of equipment, from 40 HP to 9,000HP, customised to each customer application so that each order satisfies specific country of origin requirements, local code require- ments, and individual metallurgical specifications. Regardless of the final destination, there is one common thread. Each substructure integrates a series of pressure vessels, which in turn requires a highly skilled and hard- to-find labour force. And that was just one of the problems. According to Kurt Schaerer, general manager, “The average age of an experienced pressure vessel welder and fitter is somewhere around fifty- five years old. Finding and hiring new The Hwacheon Hi-Tech 850 CNC lathe was developed to meet demands for superior turning centre performance. Its distinctive design allows it to have the largest work capacity and spindle horsepower in its class. Programming the machine can be easily handled remotely with CAD/CAM interfaces or manually using conversational inputs. Inductotherm Group offers advanced technology for the engineering, manufacturing and service of thermal processing equipment used in the melting, heating, heat treating, forging, galvanising, coating, cutting and welding of metals. Inductotherm Group – USA Website: www.inductothermgroup.com

ENERFLEX Ltd, an international company headquartered in Calgary, Canada, provides products, services and integrated solutions around the world, focusing on customers that process and move energy between the wellhead and the market. The company supplies solutions for natural gas compression, oil and gas processing, refrigeration systems and power generation equipment. Enerflex is focused on field production facilities, compression and natural gas processing plants. More specifically, Enerflex specialises in integrated turnkey natural gas processing facilities and compression plants in any operating environment. A common core of the Enerflex product line is a substructure called modules (or skids). These module/ skid assemblies incorporate a series of pressure vessel tanks. Once gas is withdrawn from the ground, and before it is available for transport, the gas must go through a series of cleaning processes, being compressed and processed several T&H LEMONT, an Inductotherm Group company, has announced the full production launch of its newly acquired Hwacheon Hi-Tech 850YMC CNC turning centre. This addition continues to extend T&H Lemont’s reach into large tool markets by expanding the company’s overall diameter and length capabilities to hard turn and finish products up to 45" in diameter as well as products extending 100" in length. The company says that the lathe, which has multiple powered 5 th axis machining turret stops, has proven to make short work of large complex shafts and straightener rolls, as well as roll tooling for large diameter pipe mills. The demand for turning and finishing these larger tooling items has been growing as customers expand production in SBQ bars and into larger diameter tooling for API and oil country tubular products.

Enerflex – USA Website: www.enerflex.com

Large diameter turning centre

PIPE BEVELING MACHINE PIPE CUTTING MACHINE - PIPE FACING MACHINE

Easy Cut & Bevel

T & H Lemont Inc – USA Website: www.thlemont.com

www.cofim.fr - info@cofim.fr

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M ay 2013