International trade in liquified natural gas (LNG) is set to boom in the coming years. Over the next 10 years, more than 40 million metric tons of annual capacity will be in operation from worldwide Greenfield projects.

As a result of this growth, liquified natural gas exports from the state’s Port of Ras Laffan in Qatar are expected to reach 77 million tons per year by the end of 2010. This makes the port the world’s largest liquified natural gas export terminal; over three times larger in capacity than its closest rival.

Erndtebrücker Eisenwerk (EEW) of Germany is the world’s biggest producer of large-diameter stainless steel pipes. As a result of the growth, the company is benefiting from liquified natural gas export growth and is expanding its existing business to include the natural gas sector as well as the oil and gas sectors.

EEW is playing a major role in the Port of Ras Laffan expansion. Supported by their long-time stainless plate supplier Outokumpu, EEW is supplying the large-diameter pipes for the lines of Qatar Gas Berth 6. Outokumpu is the stainless plate supplier for the pipes.

Pipes for Qatar Gas Berth 6 at the EEW plant. Courtesy of EEW.

The problem

Natural gas from wells is becoming increasingly sour and requires higher corrosion resistance from pipes than carbon steel can provide.

Berth 6 is a huge new docking facility at Ras Laffan. To do its share of loading the port’s projected 1,120,000 cubic meters of liquified natural gas per year, Berth 6 needs a total of 18km of EEW/Outokumpu pipe running in several parallel lines between the storage tanks and loading points.

The solution

Working together, EEW and Outokumpu are able to offer the perfect solution for the installment. To manufacture the pipes at its Erndtebrück plant in Germany, EEW has taken more than 4,600 metric tons of Outokumpu 12.7mm thick plate (grade 1.4301/1.4307 (304/304L)).

Outokumpu is able to produce this plate thickness using the coil process at its plate mills.

A large majority of the pipes are welded from coil-process plate (CPP), while only a small volume of the pipes from are produced from quarto plates.

Pipe for Qatar Gas Berth 6 at the EEW plant. Courtesy of EEW.

EEW’s Sales Director with a stainless sphere, a key visual element of the new Outokumpu corporate identity

The results

EEW’s Sales Director said that he sees more opportunities for two-way cooperation with Outokumpu going forward.

He cites the benefits of having one partner for both CPP and quarto plates. EEW and Outokumpu have partnered before in major gas projects, and have been very successful in producing subsea pipelines.

The delivery of the Qatar Gas Berth 6 pipes for liquified natural gas was completed in 2008.