Line Pipe Manufacturing Processes

Oil industry pipelines, gas pipelines, process lines, and other onshore and offshore pipelines use circular tubes made of carbon manganese steels, high-strength low-alloy (HSLA) steels, and stainless steels (in rare cases). In order to meet the growing technological demands of the oil sector, tube manufacturing processes have seen great development in the last three decades, making the so-called line pipes, a prominent product in the materials market. This chapter presents the general lines of the steel fabrication processes and the rolling of tube plates or strips, already discussed in a previous chapter, and then details the main steps that comprise the five main processes of line pipe fabrication.