Reinforced thermoplastic pipe is a generic term referring to a reliable high strength synthetic fibre or high strength steel wire reinforced pipe system. Initially developed in the early 1990s by Wavin Repox, Akzo Nobel and by Tubes d'Aquitaine from France, who developed the first pipes reinforced with synthetic fibre to replace medium pressure steel pipes in response to growing demand for non-corrosive conduits for application in the onshore oil and gas industry, particularly from Shell in the Middle East. Because of its expertise in producing pipes, Pipelife Netherlands was involved in the project to develop long length RTP in 1998. The resulting system is marketed today under the name SoluForce. More recently the technology of producing such pipe, including the marketing, rests with a few key companies. Typically, the materials used in the construction of the pipe might be Polyethylene, Polyamide-11 or PVDF and may be reinforced with Aramid or Polyester fibre or high strength steel wire, although other combinations are used. It is available in coils up to in length. The pipes are available in pressure ratings from. Recent innovations include gas tight RTP and RTP for high operating temperatures. Some RTP systems are fully certified according to certification bodies like the American Petroleum Institute. Over the last few years this type of pipe has been acknowledged as a standard alternative solution to steel for oilfield flowline applications by major oil companies and operators. RTP are used for a variety of on- and off-shore applications, including: high pressure water injection pipelines, water transport solutions, effluent water disposal, oil and gasflowlines, oil and gas gathering lines and gas pipeline. An advantage of RTP is its very fast installation time compared to steel pipe, as average speeds up to /day have been reached installing RTP in ground surface. Primarily, the pipe provides benefits to applications where steel may rupture due to corrosion and installation time is an issue.
Technology and history
The idea of synthetic fibre reinforced pipe has origins in the flexible hose and offshore industry where it has been frequently used for applications such as control lines in umbilicals and production flowlines for over 30 years. However, the commercialisation and realisation of a competitive product for the onshore oil industry came from a partnership between Teijin Aramid and Wavin Repox, where Bert Dalmolen initiated a project to develop such a pipe. He was later employed by Pipelife where a state of the artproduction line was developed to produce long-length RTP. Pipelife also developed a pipe reinforced with steel wire to achieve even higher pressure ratings of using steel reinforcement. Mr Chevrier also developed machinery that could produce such pipes, but was not successful in commercialising RTP. Although these kind of pipes have been developed for the oil and gas industry, they are also used for domestic gas, mining, CO2 and hydrogen applications.
