Borouge offers sustainable, viable piping solutions for local water industry
Borouge, a joint venture petrochemicals company between Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and Austriabased Borealis, along with its Sri Lankan associate Falco International Trading Pte Ltd, recently hosted a seminar to educate the local water industry stakeholders on the company’s feasible offerings towards enhancing Sri Lanka’s water distribution networks.
The seminar, held at Mount Lavinia Hotel, was graced by officials from the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWS&DB), Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI), manufacturers, contractors and leading value chain members of Sri Lanka’s pipe industry.
Falco International Trading Pte Ltd Managing Director Shakir Lukmanjee welcoming the audience remarked of Borouge’s involvement in enhancing and maintaining Sri Lanka’s polymer market since 2001.
“In the local infrastructure sector, Borouge regularly interacts not only with pipe customers but also with the SLSI and NWS&DB to upgrade the standards of and establish best practices in piping raw materials, pipe manufacturing, welding and installation, to ensure a long and trouble-free life-span for water infrastructure,” Lukmanjee said.
Meanwhile, Borouge Infrastructure Regional Sales Manager Gyanendra Shukla spoke on the company’s continuous efforts to introduce and maintain best practices in the local piping industry, to provide the national water infrastructure up to 50-100 years of maintenance-free lifespan.
He went on to commend SLSI for implementing the PE pipe standards in line with international standards and stressed that the implementations must be made in-letter-and-spirit by the NWS&DB and pipe converters, to reap the actual long-term benefits.
Borouge Infrastructure Application Marketing Manager Chanchal Dasgupta elaborated on Sri Lanka’s HDPE pipe standards, which specify readymade PE compounds and highlighted that the most local projects hardly meet the required standards for the HDPE pipes.
“As a result, for many projects, natural PE with blue masterbatch is used. This impacts the service life of the pipe regularly,” said Dasgupta.
Meanwhile, Dasgupta explained that utilising black
PE100 pipes over blue PE100 pipes, as already specified by the NWS&DB, is highly advantageous and is more in line with the evidently successful strategies implemented in most developed countries.
Borouge Technical Service Manager Prashant Nikhade emphasised on the importance of enforcing an integrated specification on raw materials, pipes, welding and installation, as an oversight in any of these stages raises the chances of jeopardising the piping system.
He elaborated on various design guidelines of PE pipes, distinguishing the obvious differences between those and metal pipes. He also stressed on the dire need for welder certifications, to ensure growth and development in the PE pipe industry.
Borouge provides innovative, sustainable and valuable plastics solutions for infrastructure, including pipe systems and power and communication cables, automotive and advanced packaging applications that collectively address global challenges such as climate change, food protection, access to fresh water, energy conservation, healthcare and waste management. The company is based in the UAE, with its marketing and sales head office in Singapore and employs over 3,000 people of diverse nationalities, serving customers in over 50 countries.
Falco International Trading Pte Ltd, established in 1995, is an import and export trading company and is the agent and manufacturers’ representative for plastics, rubber, chemicals, paper, steel, flexible packaging film and packaging machines. The company has developed a strong reputation in Sri Lanka as a reliable supplier of raw materials for key local industries.