ENERGY FOCUS OIL
FLEXOMARINE
Essential Technology for Offshore
Oil Operations PRODUCTION: Timothy Reeder
Since its entry into the market in 1978, Flexomarine has supplied more than 14,000 of its highquality floating and submarine hoses to clients and projects across the globe.
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Flexomarine can count among its extensive list of clients some of the real giants of the oil world, including BP, Maersk and Statoil, among countless others. These are global energy businesses which operate across the world, playing the most crucial roles in meeting the world’s increasing energy demands. Flexomarine possesses the capacity to produce in excess of 1100 of its trademark hoses per year, thanks to a raft of 13 construction machines all fully equipped with a complete calendaring system, to support all rubber and fabric rubberising procedures, and backed by a powerful steam generator. A trio of autoclaves, which are pressure chambers used to carry out industrial processes requiring
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elevated temperature and pressure different from ambient air pressure, combine to ensure the delivery of such tremendous production figures. Flexomarine’s unbridled success can be attributed in no small part to the manufacturing capacity at its disposal, and its renowned hoses are offered in two distinctive finishes: either on black rubber with orange stripes, or fully orange with a polyurethane covering. These latter are perhaps the most striking of the range, and embody the company’s no-nonsense approach to the manufacture of its wares. Submarine hoses come into their own primarily in offshore applications and are required to combine strength with flexibility. The design has to take into consideration many factors such as water depth, tide, buoy excursions and wave patterns,
while on the other side of Flexomarine’s business are its floating hoses, which have to be carefully engineered to adapt to oceans which provide rapidly changing project conditions. This requires expert knowledge and experience, and Flexomarine is one of the largest suppliers of hose for special reel systems for offloading FPSO’s in the world, fully certified under OCIMF/ GMPHOM 2009: ISO 9001:2008 which translates to an ability to fulfil the whole range of Prototype Certificates from 6” to 24” across its Double and Single Carcass designs. For the Single Carcass this can be from 6” up to 12” and from 16” up to 24”, while on the Double Carcass side provisions can be made from 6” up to 12” and from 16” up to 24”. In recent years, it has been able to bolster its service offering through the
