Report on Industrial Visit to Rocket Medical

Report on Industrial Visit to BSR - Corus

Date 7th May 2002

BSR Steel rolling mill, Hartlepool, Durham, UK

Purpose

To discuss the possibility of researching the optimisation of steel pipe coating process, pipes related to the oil and gas industry. In particular would they like to better understand and use a recently developed quality standard from Norway.

Attendees

Dave Stewardson and Fiona Gray from ISRU for pro-Enbis, John Harwood General Manager and Stephen King Manufacturing for BSR.

Pro-Enbis Partners Involved

ISRU, UK IMPRO, Norway

Discussion

The idea was to develop an interest in researching the optimisation of the pipe coating process. Currently there have been waste streams in some major projects. The main technical problem is that the steel rolling mill – owned by Corus – produces large steel pipes with a protruding surface or lump at the longditudinal join. This creates problems in getting a good fit, the coating, a plastics composite, does not always meet the surface properly at the ‘lip’ and the quantity of material required is often difficult to estimate (the coating is extremely expensive). The work could be supported by a Norwegian company that were partners with IMPRO, and who had a new standard for manufacture of coated pipes, hence the potential project/

Outcomes

The basic approach will be to persuade Corus to improve their process and thus remove the problem for BSR, BSR are 50% owned by Corus and so their leverage is minimal. A cost-benefit analysis with business case will have to be put to Senior Corus managers in order to be successful. Another approach will be to bid for EC funds under the 6th framework, a bid for smart pipe ca oatings could include this project. In the event a bid (PIPECOAT) was submitted to the EC under the nanotechnology theme 3 of the 6th framework by a number of partners including ISRU, IMPRO and Corus.