The Project
A large exploration company operating in the north sea discovered cracks in a pipeline at the onset of winter. The right specialist material needed to be supplied quickly to effect repair to maintain output at a high demand part of the year and before the winter weather worsened and repair opportunity diminished.
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Need/Requirement
Deep water exploration steels are one of our speciality product ranges and we are often asked to supply heavy plate in our specialist grades. The customer needed an ex-stock immediate supply of 300mm thick plate to effect repairs urgently. Profiled plate is to be provided with final machining to be performed by the exploration company.
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Specialist Skills
Sourcing the correct grade of material for wear and impact resistance was critical.
A reliable service and accurate CAD and profiling capability was an important consideration to ensure minimal final machining by the customer. Exceptional logistic ability was a necessity.
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Capability
Brown McFarlane's access to material and skills required to perfectly execute this project are known around the world. Our latest technology includes the Infinity Skew Head Plasma Bevel Plasma Cutter, and demonstrates Brown McFarlane's long held strategy of being the industry leader in technology and innovation.
Brown McFarlane's 100000sqft facility is capable of storing , handling and processing massive tonnages of steel plate. A mixture of more traditional and state of the art Oxy and Plasma equipment means we have the capacity as well as the skills, experience and quality standards to meet the customers requirement.
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The Agreed Solution Scope
Brown McFarlane would use its extensive specialist stocks to provide the correct grade and thickness of material.
The material would then be profiled to exact size at Brown McFarlane’s first class profiling facility in Stoke on Trent UK. Delivery would be to the customer’s facility as soon as possible.We quickly established an oxy-propane profiling solution that would give the appropriate tolerances and the appropriate Quality Control processes required at all production stages.
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Additional Customer Requirements
Extended testing of the affected pipeline area revealed more cracking and the need for additional profiled components with immediate repairs required.
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The Steel Solution
The initial profiled components were despatched within hours to our client for final machining prior to installation. All inspection and engineering standards were met and managed in our QC process.
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The Delivery
Due to Brown McFarlane’s own, extensive know how, coupled with our extensive Western European sourced steel stocks; we were able to provide a materials solution to the customer that completely met with the required specification. Further material was required to complete all the repairs. Our strong and trusted relationships with the major european mills and a our robust and efficient logistic link into our Antwerp hub meant we could source and ship additional material very quickly to the UK and onward to the customer within hours of receiving the material in stoke.
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The Conclusion
Another satisfied customer! By our ability to react instantly and our unique range of high specification steels meant a major pipeline closure at a critical time of the year was averted.
We support all our customers with equal commitment and always believe ourselves to be part of our customers supply chain. With increasing skills shortages and leaner workforces the ability to instantly bring traditional or sophisticated processing to the highest quality standard on demand is something our customers understand and recognises as a vital part of solution provision and maintenance planning.
All this is another example of our commitment to our customers and demonstrable proof of our ability to assist in the delivery of innovative solutions in full and on time.