African Fusion March 2022

2Roads and AWT: an excellent fit

AWT and 2Roads form a formidable asset repair offering

African Fusion talks to Kagisho Bapela, executive for strategy, mergers and acquisitions for the Two Roads Group (2Roads); and Ross Tudhope, manag- ing director of Applied Welding Technology (AWT) about the excellent fit between their repair capa- bilities for industrial plant dependent on process flow technologies.

Kagisho Bapela, executive for strategy, mergers and acquisitions for 2Roads and Ross Tudhope, managing director of Applied Welding Technology (AWT).

“ T woRoads is aGroupof engineer- ing companies with a common focus on process flow applica- tions,” begins KagishoBapelaof the 2Roads Group. “We have built our services around valves andweownPaltech, aproudly South African, 100% black-owned valves and pumps manufacturer, supplier and service company,” he begins. 2Roads companies include: • Integrity NDT Projects, a specialist non- destructive testing company specialis- ing in various types of conventional and advanced NDT methods and post-weld heat treatment. • PSC Integrity, a Type A inspection authority for both manufacturing and in-service inspections. • NDT Projects, a company that provides NDT and heat treatment services as well as corrosion protection solutions, including pickling and passivation services. • Groupline Projects, which develops lin- ing solutions for a variety of materials handling, flow and wear problems. • Paltech, the Group’s manufacturer of custom-designed valve solutions and horizontal and vertical centrifugal pumps.

“We do pressure testing of pressure vessels; inspection and corro- sion protection of pipelines as well as for seaside process plants in countries such as West Africa; and we offer valve and pump solutions across industrial sectors, from mining and power generation to water infrastructure, petrochemical, food and beverage plants, along with associated engineering services for all types of process flow circuits,” he tells African Fusion. “Two Roads’ ultimate goal is to offer integrated services along the process flow value chain, whether in mining, power generation, water infrastructure or any industrywhere steam, water, slurries, fuels or gases need to be moved, managed and controlled,” he adds. “As part of our maintenance services, it became important to expand our offering to include advanced weld repair, which made the partnership with Applied Weld- ing Technology a natural extension to our integrated 2Roads offering,” he continues, referring to the recent acquisition by 2Roads of a 51% stake in Applied Welding (AWT) on January 13, 2022. Highlighting one example of the synergy between 2Roads Group companies and AWT, Bapela notes that companies within the 2Roads Group hold contracts at various Eskom and other power stations – Grootv- lei, Kusile, Hendrina, Arnot and Lethabo, which involve applying its full suite of Inspection and NDT offerings to identify the condition and maintenance needs of the boilers, piping and associated critical equipment such as high pressure steam valves and feedpumps. “IntegrityNDTProj- ects applies NDT techniques – such as con- ventional and computerised radiography, phased-array UT, conventional UT, MT, PT and many other methods – to equipment, from high pressure, high temperature valves to pipe work, assisting engineers to create the repair scope of work necessary

to keep these power stations running reli- ably,” he notes. “Aggregated specialist repair services from 2Roads Group companies create ad- ditional opportunities to implement repairs and deliver a holistic suite of services to these power stations,” he points out. Applied Welding: a perfect fit “AWT fits verywell into the broader 2Roads offering. We have always done a lot of re- pair work on valves and pumps, mostly on Eskom units. 2Roads’ inspection services are particularly interesting to us because we have developed some advanced weld repair procedures for some of the more critical valves used,” continues Ross Tud- hope, MD of AWT. While 2Roads can deliver a full repair and maintenance service on its Paltech valves, Tudhope says AWT has long of- fered multi-brand valve repair services. Most notable, he says Applied Welding has recently developed an advanced pro- cedure to do in situ repairs of large steam valve seats. “Critical-welded high pressure valves that require repair on a generation unit can take a long time to remove and replace. Instead of having to remove the entire valve and replace it with a new or reconditioned one, we have developed an automated process of replacing valve seats without having to remove or dis- mantle the entire valve. “We replace the seatswith oneswe have reconditioned and machined to specifica- tion in our factory in Spartan. Most high pressure high temperature gate valves seats are sealed by welding the seats into place, which involves welding in some very difficult to see and reach places. We have developed a purpose-built system that can replace these valve seats in situ using special jigs and welding heads. At the mo- ment, we can accommodate parallel slide

AWT routinely repairs main-steam valve parts, in this case an IP Governor valve seat.

18

March 2022

AFRICAN FUSION