An automated TIG hot-wire process ensures consistency for a specialty fabricator of pipes and components used in offshore drilling operations. Sub Sea Services AS is a family-owned fabricating operation in Stavanger, Norway, large port city that thrives on business activities in the North Sea in oil industry. Since 1990, Sub Sea Services has been offering services and specialized products for the global offshore oil-exploration industry. Because of the extraordinary demand from that sector, and to satisfy their own quality and productivity standards, Sub Sea Services earlier this year invested in a new, advanced manufacturing process: welding and finishing pipe assemblies and components with TIG hot-wire technology supplied by Polysoude (www.polysoude. com). Polysoude develops orbital welding processes and equipment that it supplies worldwide. "Pipes and systems used to convey crude oil or natural-gas energy sources at high speed and at high pressure demand high levels of investment," explained Weld Shop Manager Otto Henning Sulen, outlining the technological requirements and financial considerations for the firm's manufacturing processes. "The sand and other abrasive minerals, as well as corrosive media that also are conveyed during exploration, make it necessary to use the highest-quality pipe materials that are available.
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