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VALLOUREC TUBES FOR MONT SAINT-MICHEL

Mont St Michel, in Normandy, has just become an island, after decades attached to the French coast. A new bridge allows this world-famous site to revert to being an island on certain days in the year, and ensures that access is car-free. Robert Williams reports on the part that French steel company Vallourec has played in the project.

The old road causeway to Mont St Michel has been replaced by a new dyke. At the end of the dyke is a bridge made of steel tubes which extends to below the mediaeval abbey. It was French company Vallourec that manufactured the seamless steel tubes that support the new bridge, which opened to the public in July 2014.

The 760 metre-long bridge was built with about 400 tons of seamless steel tubes produced in Vallourec’s Aulnoye-Aymeries plant. These tubes form the 124 columns that anchor the bridge deep to the seafloor, removing the need for solid concrete piers. The tubes, up to nine and a half metres long, have a diameter of 244.5mm and wall thicknesses of between 40–60mm. The thinner-walled tubes are used at the beginning and end of the structure, and the thicker-walled ones in the middlesection, where the load factors are greater. A special anti-corrosion coating protects them from aggressive saltwater.

Vallourec has experience in this area, as it is the world leader in premium tubular solutions. As well as for the construction sector, many of its products are built for the energy market, including oil and gas, and also for power generation The company also has expertise across other industrial sectors, including automobile manufacturing.

With 24,000 employees, sales of 5.6 billion euros in 2013 – 81 per cent from outside Europe – integrated manufacturing facilities integrated in more than 20 countries and advanced Research and Development, Vallourec offers its customers innovative global solutions to meet the energy challenges of the 21st century.

Vallourec developed in the late nineteenth century in two traditionally industrial French regions: the North, around Valenciennes near Lille, Maubeuge near the Belgian border, and Burgundy, around the town of Montbard. Both of these regions are still the Group’s main production areas, with a head office in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris.

For the oil and gas industry, Vallourec designs and develops a comprehensive range of products including seamless tubes and premium connections for drilling operations, line pipes and well equipment capable of withstanding extreme operating conditions, including high pressures, high temperatures, deviated wells, deep offshore and corrosive environments

Tubes for multiple applications

Vallourec recently won a contract from Technip Umbilicals for the Edradour project operated by TOTAL in the UK. As part of this first industrial order, Vallourec will deliver super duplex welded tubes for umbilicals from its plant located in Venarey-Les Laumes.

A key component in subsea installations, umbilicals are made of small-diameter tubes, cables and optical fibres, which con-

nect the equipment on the seabed together and to a control station at the surface by transporting fluids, supplying power, and transmitting information. Vallourec produces tubes to be fitted into umbilicals. These tubes offer superior strength and mechanical properties compared to products currently available on the market.

In power generation, Vallourec offers a premium range of tubes capable of withstanding the most severe temperature and pressure conditions. Its solutions enable power companies to meet the challenges of energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions in power plants.

In the construction industry, Vallourec manufactures tubes used in architectural projects, industrial or collective equipment and private buildings. Vallourec has provided tubes for the construction of the steel structure of the Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa, the Stade de France and the Grande Arche de la Défense in Paris, Wembley Stadium in London, Bangkok Airport in Thailand, as well as certain components used to build the top of One World Trade Centre in New York.

Recently, in preparation for the FIFA Confederations Cup Brazil 2013 and the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Vallourec provided structural seamless steel tubes for the renovation and construction of Brazilian stadiums.

The Saint-Saulve Mill

One of Vallourec’s key facilities is the SaintSaulve steel mill, which was established in Valenciennes in 1975. Today, Vallourec has a steel mill in Saint-Saulve and three pipe mills. In recent years, two major investments have put Saint-Saulve steel mill at the cutting edge of technology. One of these was a new vacuum plant and forging machine, built for the production of high-alloy steel grades, which came on line in 2001.

The electric arc process at Saint Saulve mainly uses scrap metal – about 70,000 tonnes a month, delivered by road, rail and water. A 200 metre-long quay was built to facilitate transportation by water. Continuous cast tube rounds are the starting material for tube production.

The manufacturing programme consists mainly of special steels, although the carbon steel produced in Saint-Saulve is still competitive. Saint-Saulve supplies billets with a range of diameters from 180 to 325mm. Diameters of 140mm can also be produced with the help of a forging machine.

The mill in Saint-Saulve has been thoroughly modernised with the help of considerable investment. In 2001 a vacuum plant and a forging machine came on line for the production of high-alloy steel grades and since early 2008 production capacity has been increased to 730,000 tonnes per year. Vallourec says that the increase is the result of continuous improvements in production techniques as well as of the infrastructure investment.

Last year, the company invested 87.4 million euros in research and development. More than 500 engineers and technicians work at its production sites and six research centers located in France, Germany, Brazil and the US. These centres, equipped for high performance testing and modeling, provide expertise in all Vallourec’s main sectors. n