CRC-Evans pioneered automatic welding over 35 years ago. We’ve constructed over 42,000 miles (67,200 km) of pipelines around the world, stretching across the frozen arctic, through dense tropical jungles, over scorching deserts, and everywhere in between.

Along the way we’ve continually developed new technologies and innovative tools to boost productivity and efficiency on your projects. In short, for decades we’ve worked to help our clients take their pipelines further, faster.

CRC-Evans Automatic Welding has one mission: To help you achieve or exceed your goals – in productivity, speed, quality and economy.
 
 
 
 
   
 

We realize that having great equipment can’t accomplish all your goals alone. Thus, rather than simply being a welding machine vendor, we’re with you all the way through.

We call this Total Project Support™ – TPS™. CRC-Evans is a key innovator of automatic welding technology. Our people have amassed countless years of experience. It only makes sense that we share this knowledge, supporting you from planning to completion.

Working from your project parameters and goals, we will make recommendations on the ideal equipment and most efficient welding system. Through training, technical support and field supervision we help ensure top performance throughout the project. And our R&D supports you into the future with new innovations.
 
   
 
CRC Evans Welding Technology Puts Final Touch on Majors’ Field Test of X-120 and X-100 Pipe

CRC-Evans to Provide Welding Equipment For 265-Kilometer Pipeline Project in Oman

Mechanized Welding & Marine Pipelines
 
   
 
CRC Evans Welding Technology Puts Final Touch on Majors’ Field Test of X-120 and X-100 Pipe
HOUSTON, May 18, 2004 – A Canadian field test using welding technology supplied by CRC-Evans has officially removed the “experimental” tag from X-100 and X-120 pipe.

Years of research and development preceded the installation of two capacity-boosting loops on an existing pipeline owned by TransCanada PipeLine Limited in Alberta, Canada. Included in the field test were:
• A 1.6-kilometer loop of 36-in. X-120 pipe developed by ExxonMobil; and
• A 2.0-kilometer loop of 36-in. X-100 pipe developed jointly by TransCanada and BP.

In the pipeline industry, numerical designations identify the specific yield strength of pipe. The X-120 pipe developed by ExxonMobil, for example, has double the yield strength of X-60 allowing the same pressure capacity to be achieved
with half the weight of pipe.
 
The field test near Slave Lake in Alberta supplied the three majors – ExxonMobil, TransCanada and BP – with a remote setting to test their new pipe using welding technology supplied by Houston-based CRC-Evans. Engineers from CRC-Evans served on the R&D teams for both the X-100 and X-120 program, and the field test marked the debut of new automated welders and techniques developed by CRC-Evans.

“As field trials go, they don’t get any better than this. Not only did we hit our estimated production rates, but we also completed both loops with an extremely low repair rate. The majors got exactly what they were looking for: a field confirmation that opens the door to commercial use of X-100 and X-120 pipe,” said Brian Laing, President of CRC-Evans Automatic Welding.

Laing noted that no special accommodations were made for the X-120 and X-100 loops.
“If you’re out to dispel myths about a new pipe, your field test should duplicate actual working conditions. We used conventional contractors working in a remote location during a Canadian winter – and the X-120 and X-100 sailed through it all with flying colors,” Laing said.

Two different welding technologies were employed during the field test:

• The ExxonMobil sponsored X-120 loop marked the debut of a new CRC-Evans automated welding “bug” dubbed the P-260 and of a new wire developed by ExxonMobil for welding X-120. Working in pairs on the outside of each 40-ft.-long section of pipe, the computer-controlled P-260s use pulsed-gas metal arc welding. Four P-260 welding stations were employed during the four-day test, with crews completing an average of 41 welds a day with an overall repair rate of only 1.41 percent. “Prior to the field test, everyone would have been ecstatic with a repair rate of 10 percent. The P-260 was everything we designed it to be,” Laing said.

• CRC-Evans used a combination of conventional and tandem welding technology to complete the BP-sponsored loop of X-100 pipe. Developed for the pipeline welding industry by Cranfield University in the United Kingdom, tandem welding doubles the welding speed of conventional single-arc processes. CRC-Evans used its P-600 welding systems to add the loop of X-100 pipe to the existing TransCanada line, and Laing noted that the computer-controlled P-600s achieved a lower-than-expected repair rate of 3.9%.

Laing said smiles were the order of the day at the end of the field test. “I know that our design engineers enjoyed their collaboration with ExxonMobil, TransCanada and BP, and the field test demonstrated what can be achieved when highly skilled teams share a common goal. These majors put their trust in us, and CRC-Evans delivered,” Laing said.

CRC-Evans Automatic Welding manufactures automated welding systems used in the construction of pipelines. The company is a subsidiary of CRC-Evans Pipeline International, a leading provider of specialized equipment and services for the construction and maintenance of pipelines. CRC-Evans manufactures pipeline-construction equipment and automatic welding systems, and provides field joint coating, weighting, heat treatment, and inspection services. Based in Houston, CRC-Evans maintains offices in North America, Europe, and the Middle East.
 
   
 
CRC-Evans to Provide Welding Equipment For 265-Kilometer Pipeline Project in Oman
HOUSTON – CRC-Evans Automatic Welding of Houston has won a contract to provide welding equipment and related services for a new 265-kilometer pipeline serving the Sah Nihayda gas plant in Oman.

CRC-Evans was selected by Punj Lloyd, Ltd., contractor to Petroleum Development Oman L.L.C. (PDO). Brian Laing, president of CRC-Evans Automatic Welding, said CRC-Evans will supply its P-600 dual torch welding system to weld 265 kilometers of 48-in. pipe with a nominal wall thickness of 16.1 millimeters. This project is scheduled for completion in April 2005.

CRC-Evans Automatic Welding manufactures automated welding systems used in the construction of pipelines. The company is a subsidiary of CRC-Evans Pipeline International, a leading provider of specialized equipment and services for the construction, rehabilitation and maintenance of pipelines. CRC-Evans manufactures pipeline-construction equipment and automatic welding systems, and provides field joint coating, weighting, heat treatment and inspection services. Based in Houston, CRC-Evans maintains offices in North America and Europe.
 
   
 
Mechanized Welding & Marine Pipelines
Pipeline construction, both offshore and onshore, is a unique industry. In no other industry does the construction environment change daily, often bringing drastic changes to the working site each day or shift. Highly skilled craftsmen often have to be transported hundreds if not thousands of miles from home to the general location of the construction site. At work, many will operate and / or maintain very expensive equipment. On completion of the project, the men and equipment are sent home. In the case of offshore construction, they are housed and fed on board a pipe-laying vessel – commonly referred to as a lay barge. These barges can cost well over a quarter of a million dollars a day to operate. All of this adds up to very large costs. The net effect is that productivity, and quality of that productivity, becomes of paramount importance. It was this demand that lead to the development and introduction in 1969 of the CRC-Crose (now CRC-Evans) Automatic Welding System.

In the days gone by, the words offshore and mechanized welding, or as some say – automatic, were synonymous as if speaking about Brown & Root and the CRC-Evans Automatic GMAW welding system. The basic system was designed and built specifically for pipeline welding. In the late 1960’s, when the system was first debuted on a 36” landline, the system was referred to as the CRC-Crose system. It was shortly after this in the early 1970’s, the system found its way into the offshore market place in the hands of the giant offshore contractor Brown & Root. Then, as the system does today, the essential components of the system consist of a Pipe Facing Machine, a Hydraulic Power Unit to power the PFM, an Internal Welding Machine, and an External Welding Machine mounted on a welding band, which circumnavigates the pipe circumference. Figure 1 shows the originally designed workhorse external “bug”; the P-100 used extensively in the North Sea gas market development.

In the 35th anniversary of the CRC-Evans Automatic Welding System, the basic system has been used in the welding construction of over 65,000 kilometers of linepipe the world over, both onshore and offshore, from low-grade CS pipe to high grade X-120, and to other applications such as CRA materials. The technology has been used in every extreme environment from the harshness of Alaska, Canada and Russia, to the tropics of Malaysia and South America, and the deserts of Africa and Saudi Arabia. With over 7000km of offshore use, the system has been used both in the traditional shallow S-lay configuration on relatively large diameter linepipe, and in the more demanding and costly J-lay or reeled configuration for steel cantonary riser (SCR) and deepwater flowline installation of small diameter pipe.

To meet the demands of the ever changing construction environment, although the basics of traditional appearance have remained, CRC has evolved it’s equipment to provide quantum leaps in production rate potential through improvements in welding technology, design and various levels of system sophistication. Fifteen years ago, the P-100 was replaced by the computer controlled P-200 and again currently this model is being revised / upgraded with through-the-arc tracking technology into the P-260 model. Today, both of these simple and user friendly bugs are configured to weld all passes and can be pre-programmed with individual welding parameters which are pass specific. With through-the-arc tracking technology of the P-260, the operator needs only to steer the bug as the contact-to-work distance is continuously monitored by the computer control system to maintain optimum welding conditions in all positions. The on-board computer controls the machine and offers other significant benefits in QA/QC monitoring and the ability to maximize welding speeds and thus production rates.

Commonly used in offshore installation of reeled piping, both of these machines can and are used to deposit the root bead, as well as completing the remaining of the weld joint depositing the hot, fills and cap passes. CRC-Evans external root bead technology uses our copper back-up technology, a standard and common offshore application for many pipe sizes. However, some authorities, working specifications, and owning companies do not allow the use of copper back-up due to the risk of copper contamination and associated potential for cracking. Although our pulse-GMAW minimizes these risks, in these instances, the traditional route of using the internal welder on diameters of 24” and greater is utilized. On smaller diameters, the bead can be is deposited using controlled short arc bead techniques, such as STT.

During the last seven years, CRC developed a dual headed torch bug, which has been used in several offshore projects in the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast at New York and Boston. Debuted on land in 1998 for the installation of the high-pressure Alliance bullet line from the remote areas of Alberta to Chicago, the P-600 has seen several design alterations to make the system more robust and reliable to push the capability of process utilization efficiency to a maximum for offshore applications where productivity and cost reduction are essential factors.

Using digital technology, the systems are programmed to weld within qualified parameter ranges. Travel and wire feed speeds, machine position, position based welding parameters – all essential welding details, are controlled to close and exacting tolerances with digital feedback. From then on, the system is fully ‘automatic’. This is achieved via our through-the-arc tracking technology. With the need for increased productivity, the human capability to successfully manually control torch positioning is exceeded. This capability of tracking along with position based parameter control, equates to higher production rates without the risk of increased repair rates.

As the worlds demand for petroleum products continues to increase, the need to bring the raw product to market economically is essential. Many of the raw product locations are becoming more remote and must come from long distances, both in water depth and far from onshore processing plants. The CRC-Evans Automatic Welding control systems are in-house engineered to be both sophisticated and yet simple for pipeline contractors to get maximum control of their welding operations. This directly contributes to high production rates, lower operating costs and thus added ability to help bring our globally needed energy source to market economically.
 
     
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