Erku International Ltd: Turba Pipe Factory in Ashgabat Formally Inaugurated
Turkmenistan, formerly ranked among the world’s top 10 cotton producers, possesses extensive oil and natural gas reserves, which, for lack of an ade-quate infra-structure, cannot yet be fully exploited for the country’s economy. As part of Turkmenistan’s endeavor to become industrialized, the Turkish company Erku International Ltd, headquartered in Ankara, received an order to plan and build a pipe factory. An ultra-modern production facility with a total area of almost 167,000 m2 has now been constructed in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, where in future about 8.5 million meters of various pipe and fitting systems will be produced annually for the local market and neighboring Central Asian markets. On February 19, 2006 the facility will be inaugurated with a formal opening ceremony in the presence of high-ranking government officials.
The new Turba Pipe Factory with a production floor area of 37.621 m2 is owned by TURKMENNEFTEGAZSTROY. ‘To supply high-quality products to our markets at an attractive price level from the very beginning, this facility has been planned under the most modern aspects and equipped with state-of-the-art machinery from material feeding to quality inspection’, says Gökan Arasli, the company’s Managing Director.
Right from production start-up the company’s product range is characterized by an enormous variety of different items. Towards this end, the facility has been equipped with an extensive range of complete high-performance production lines. Twelve in-jection molding machines with clamping forces ranging from 15 to 160 t will produce a total of 350 different fittings. The range includes HDPE and MDPE fittings with diameters between 20 and 315 mm for gas and water transport pipe systems and various connecting pieces for electrical installations. In addition to these, Turba Pipe offers PP fittings in the 50 to 160 mm diameter range, PP-R-C fittings from 20 to 63 mm in diameter as well as steel-reinforced fittings for high-pressure pipes. For these products in particular, the processor has invested in a metal processing line with a CNC cutter and a robot-controlled welding system.
In the extrusion hall, eight complete extrusion lines for the production of pipes and hoses have been installed. Five of these have been supplied by the Viennese com-pany Cincinnati Extrusion GmbH. They include an irrigation pipe manufacturing line, equipped with an Alpha extruder for pipes with diameters from 16 to 20 mm. As an alternative, this line can also produce PVC hoses with fiber content and diameters ranging from 6 to 32 mm. In addition, Cincinnati Extrusion has installed one mono-extrusion line and two co extrusion lines for the production of PE pipes with diame-ters from 20 to 630 mm, of non-pressure PP pipes with diameters ranging from 50 to 200 mm and 20 to 63 mm PP-R pipes for domestic installations. The fifth line is a 7-layer co extrusion line equipped with 7 extruders, to manufacture specialized plastic composite pipes with steel reinforcement for high-pressure applications ‘Depending on customers’ specifications concerning standards of pressure-resistance and the substance to be transported, we are able to produce pipes wrapped in either two or four layers of steel with this line, and also with our second line’, Arasli explains. Fi-nally, the company’s product portfolio also includes fiberglass-reinforced pipes, for the production of which the pipe manufacturer has also installed suitable equipment.
In addition to injection molding machines and extrusion lines, the facility is equipped with a fully automatic, central material drying and conveyance system. To allow for cost-efficient operation of the facility with minimum wastage, a granulator has been provided for in-house recycling. The company’s laboratory contains ultra-modern test equipment, so that all necessary mechanical and chemical tests can be carried out directly.