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PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Flowline Alaska: Keeping more than 2,000 miles of pipeline insulated Company also insulates pipe fittings, fabricated pipe assemblies, pipeline anchors; in addition, Flowline Alaska offers pipe fabrication services for pipe and structural projects Patricia Jones PNA Contributing Writer
Amid the hum of various specialized machines, about 20 men work on different projects — some welding, some operating complex machines, some moving 20 to 80-foot sections of pipe in and out of coating booths.
While appearing to work independently, each person completed a skilled task, passing the section of pipe on to the next stage. All were working in unison to complete the finished project — a custom piece of insulated pipe complete with specific dimensions, fittings and protective coatings.
Such is the daily routine at Flowline Alaska — a Fairbanks-based pipe insulation and fabrication company that provides custom-built components for pipeline projects in the Last Frontier.
“We’re doing a lot of work here that, in the past, was done on the North Slope,” said Chris Johansen, engineering manager at Flowline. “Working on the slope is expensive, so anything you can do in town saves both time and money.”
More than 20 years of North Slope work More than 20 years ago, Flowline Alaska cut its teeth in the state’s booming oil industry, providing insulated pipe for North Slope projects. Since then, Flowline crews have applied more than 25 million pounds of polyurethane insulation around more than 2,000 miles of pipe, Johansen said.
Initially, the company began operations in the Fairbanks area to pre-insulate steel pipe bound for the North Slope, developing and refining a polyurethane insulation process that withstands the harsh Arctic climate.
At peak operations, up to 90 workers will fill the fabrication and insulation facility. In summer months, as the workload reduces, fewer than a dozen will continue work at the plant.
Their summer work tasks include some of the areas that Flowline has branched out in during recent years in an effort to maintain the company through slack times in the oil and gas industry.
Now, Flowline provides specialized welding services on pipe, applies corrosion coatings to steel pipe, fabricates truckable modules for oil industry use and provides insulated and durable plastic water and sewer pipe for rural Alaska villages.
Pipe insulating service is mainstay of business Flowline is known throughout the state and in other Arctic climates for producing insulated pipe that can withstand frigid cold temperatures found in the north.
But it’s not just straight sections of pipe that need protection from Arctic conditions. Flowline insulates specialized components, such as pipe fittings, fabricated pipe assemblies and pipeline anchors.
Equipment at the company’s facility on Phillips Field Road, nestled on 28 acres in the heart of the railroad industrial area in Fairbanks, is designed to insulate pipe ranging up to 80 feet in length, and 60 inches in diameter.
Operating at full capacity, crews at Flowline can insulate up to 10,000 lineal feet of steel pipe per shift, producing a large amount of insulated pipe in a short time to meet tight North Slope construction schedules.
Polyurethane used in the process is purchased in railcar quantities, delivered to the facility by its rail link with the Alaska Railroad. At Flowline, the insulation is stored on site in one of six 17,000 gallon heated tanks.
Using the company’s specially designed urethane insulation system, density of the pipe insulation can be modified, ranging from two to six pounds per cubic foot.
A full-time quality assurance manager and lab technician, who staff one of the state’s most complete urethane testing laboratories at the Flowline facility, provide assurance that the insulation system will statistically exceed design requirements 99.99 percent of the time, Johansen said.
Corrosion coatings also applied at Flowline In addition to applying insulation to the exterior of steel pipe, Flowline offers a full range of corrosion coatings, which extend the life of the oil and gas transportation system.
Coatings that are frequently applied include single and dual layer fusion bonded epoxy, inorganic zinc, urethane, mastic and liquid epoxy.
The company’s Quality Assurance program monitors all aspects of the powder and liquid coating applications, following conventional testing procedures. In addition, Johansen said, Flowline’s coating personnel maintain state painter certification.
The production line for corrosion coatings inside the Flowline facility allows for year-round application of fusion bonded epoxy coatings, either in single or dual layer thicknesses. Crews can coat up to 65,000 pounds of straight run line pipe per hour, using the fusion bonded epoxy coating process.
Liquid coatings are applied in a 10,000 square foot ventilated paint booth. The Flowline facility also includes a 10,000 square foot steel grit blasting booth and a distillation system that eliminates solvent disposal and associated hazardous material handling requirements.
Specialized welding services grows out of insulating work In addition to insulating and applying protective coatings on pipe, Flowline offers a variety of steel fabrication services, both for pipe and for structural projects.
That work came as a result of the company looking to expand, in order to provide more year-round work for its employees.
“Pipe insulation typically happens between November and March, then we have nothing for the rest of the year,” Johansen said. “We started pursuing other fabrication work — we’re 350 miles closer to Prudhoe Bay than Anchorage is.” Crews at Flowline weld together joints, assemble complicated piping configurations and fabricate the structural assemblies that hold pipe in place.
The plant can handle custom fabrication on pipe ranging in size from three-quarters of an inch to 60 inches in diameter, and up to a two-inch wall thickness. Both manual and semi-automatic welding techniques are used on a variety of materials.
“We also do work that is a little more complex, such as alloys that are trickier to weld than the run of the mill carbon steel,” Johansen said.
Equipment and skilled labor available at Flowline are able to weld carbon steels, corrosion resistant alloys and high density polyethylene materials. Certified welders are monitored by a third party inspection company, which uses five inspection methods to monitor and document the quality of work.
Welding processes currently used by Flowline include SMAW (Shielded Metal Arc Welding), FCAW (Flux Core Arc Welding), GTAW (Gas Tungsten Arc Welding), GMAW (Gas Metal Arc Welding), SAW (Submerged Arc Welding), GMAW/STT (Gas Metal Arc Welding Surface Tension Transfer) and HDPE Butt Fusion (High Density Polyethylene Butt Fusion).
Water and septic pipe produced at Flowline For nearly eight years, Flowline has worked in a new arena — insulating plastic pipe for rural water and sewer systems. Using High Density Polyethylene pipe as the carrier, Flowline crews apply a protective polyurethane insulation, which is then covered with an aluminum outer jacket.
Typically, such Arctic grade water and sewer pipe is produced in 20-foot lengths, enabling cost-effective transportation to remote areas in Alaska. The company also produces a full spectrum of Arctic grade fittings, such as elbows and T-joints, all insulated to U.S. Public Health Service specifications.
Since 1994, Flowline Alaska has supplied more than 250,000 lineal feet of water and sewer piping to locations all across the state. Johansen anticipates an increase in this work, as more federal and state sanitation grants are awarded to rural communities for building new and upgrading existing water and sewer systems.
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