Mumbai, June 23: Reliance Industries has quietly set up a huge pipe fabricating facility at its upcoming mega-refinery-cum-petrochemicals complex coming up at Jamnagar, which may propel it into the big league. Set up for the purpose of the immediate project, Reliance officials said the pipe-making capacity of the facility exceeds the combined might of Larsen & Toubro and Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd."We do not make engineering equipment etc, but in pipe-making we are certainly already bigger than everyone," said a Reliance official to journalists in the course of a guided tour of the Reliance Petrochemicals facility. The Reliance facility can make 15,000 inch dia of pipe per annum.
They said that once the refinery project goes on-stream, Reliance plans to continue to use the fabricating facility not just for its own future projects, or for projects that it intends to undertake abroad as and when the opportunity comes, but also to fabricate pipes for other companies and projects. The unique sellingpotential of the pipes facility is an induction bending machine, a first in India, with which Reliance engineers can cause pipes to bend at desired angles and radii, without having to search for and procure the joints or "elbows" usually required for the purpose.
The use of such a machine, suggested by the engineering procurement and construction contractor Bechtel Corp, has substantially speeded up as well added in terms of quality to the pipes being fabricated for the Jamnagar project by Reliance Petroleum, claimed the Reliance officials.
"Once this project is over, we do not intend to decommission the fabrication facility at all. We have developed this as one of our strength areas," said a Reliance official, "in fact, we can now undertake pipe-fabrication jobs for other companies and even be competitive with other Indian companies currently in the business."
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
