October 2011, Vol. 238 No. 10

Business Meetings & Events

Rosen Group Celebrates Thirtieth Anniversary

In September 2011, Rosen celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. Today it stands as a leading privately owned company serving the oil and gas industry with inspection, integrity, and rehabilitation products and services. For 30 years, the company has worked to provide the industry with advanced inspection and integrity solutions to ensure safe and economical operation of a wide range of assets and facilities.

The Rosen Group operates in more than 100 countries and employs over 2,000 people. Founded by Hermann Rosen in Germany in 1981, Rosen has been headquartered in Switzerland since 2000. It has grown from a small business to an international group of companies. Over the last 30 years, the Rosen Group has evolved from modest beginnings in the field of pipeline inspection to a world-renowned high-tech company. This story started in Lingen (Northwest Germany) in a tiny office that specialized in electronic engineering, with two employees only.

The company was not working to capacity. Therefore, Rosen set out to explore an alternative range of uses for electronic measurement equipment and microprocessor systems, novel and innovative technologies at the time. A promising economic niche was discovered in the area of pipeline inspection technologies. The systematic examination of pipe defects such as leaks, dents, corrosion and cracks seemed to offer a challenging international field of business activities.

Rosen recognized early that due to the demanding nature of the oil and gas market, operators are under increasing pressure to run their facilities without interruption or downtime while at the same time being forced to meet ever stricter safety standards. That is why the company’s product, service and technology developments closely follow the operational trends of the industry according to Hermann Rosen who summed up the company’s philosophy of the early days when he said: “What others are doing, we should manage to achieve better, faster and cheaper without imitating.”

Area of Rosen Technology & Research Center Germany.

Customer Orientation And Substantial Investments
While other companies are granted high subsidies by federal and local governments, Rosen exclusively relies on its own economic and human resources – with proven results. Rosen says its strong position in the world market is based on close customer relations and continuous investment in research and development. Specific inspection challenges require tailor-made solutions. From the smallest device to the most complex inspection system, Rosen develops and combines every aspect of professional engineering in-house. This emphasis on service and innovation has proved to be a reliable recipe for success, as shown by the company’s double-digit annual growth figures.

While the company has become a multinational company, its focus on service has not changed. Its first priority remains meeting the ever-growing demands and fulfilling the individual needs of customers around the world. Combining solid expertise and extensive experience, its employees pursue this goal through their personal commitment and high quality standards.

First cleaning tool.

At Rosen, technological developments go hand-in-hand with long-term relationships with customers. The company’s success is founded on the essential values embraced by its employees all over the world. Long-term strategies, continuous investment in applied research and development, utilization of the most sophisticated technology and a flexible corporate structure are key factors in maximizing client benefits. Only a convincing price-to-performance and price-to-value ratio can ensure consistent growth and secure the continued creation of high-tech jobs worldwide.

First geometry inspection tool.

Reorganization Due To Company Growth And New Business Segments
Today, Rosen not only serves the oil and gas industry but also provides a wide range of sophisticated and innovative products and system solutions to engineering industries such as aerospace, marine, transportation and security. Rosen also has the expertise and equipment to inspect utility assets such as telecommunication towers, wind turbines, transmission towers, rail wheels and water distribution systems.

Launching the first MFL inspection tool.

While the group is expanding, its products and services become more and more complex. Optimized organization and effective communication are more important than ever. To maintain its ability to respond to immediate problems and provide a solution in a timely and efficient manner, a reorganization of the Rosen Group was deemed indispensable. Begun in early 2010, the restructuring measures have now been fully implemented.

Latest inspection tool: 8-inch heavy wall crack detection tool.

For more information about the Rosen Group, visit www.roseninspection.net.

Rosen Timeline
1981
H. Rosen Engineering GmbH was founded in Lingen, Germany to develop and sell pipeline inspection products and services. The first developments included a leak detection tool, a transmitter and an electronic tool detection system.

1990
Rosen USA was incorporated in the state of Texas. Houston was chosen because it is home to a large and diverse number of oil, gas and chemical companies. When Rosen entered the North American market, the company management was well aware of the challenges ahead: a well-established U.S.-based vendor provided the majority of pipeline inspection services to pipeline operators. To establish a reputation early in its development, Rosen USA began its track record with some of the smaller and less known pipeline operators. The company’s reputation was built by consistently providing the market with quality personnel and products. Rosen is now the technology leader in the American inline inspection market.

1993
To establish a presence in the Asian region, Rosen opened an office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

1994
An operating division was formed in Veracruz, Mexico, to improve collaboration with PEMEX. Pipeline inspection services have increased dramatically with Rosen Mexico now one of the largest providers of high-resolution pipeline inspections.

1996
Rosen established Plant & Facility Inspections in the Netherlands. This subsidiary operated out of Zoetermeer and the scope of work comprised tank, coiled tubing and robotic pipeline inspections.

1997
An operating division (i.e. an office plus a workshop) was formed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for improved market access.

1998
Rosen USA reactivated Canadian Operations as a division of North American Operations.

1999
H. Rosen Engineering GmbH was renamed Rosen Technology & Research Center (RTRC) Germany. A representative office was opened in Melbourne to consolidate Rosen’s position in Australia. Since the office was established, Rosen Australia has inspected all major pipelines in Australia and New Zealand at least once.

2000
As part of restructuring measures, the Rosen headquarters moved from Lingen in Germany to Stans in Switzerland. At the same time, a new Rosen Technology & Research Center was set up in Stans. This new RTRC develops self-propelled inspection tools and monitoring system solutions.

A new office was opened in Oldenzaal, the Netherlands, to service all the major pipeline operators within the European, CE, CIS, African and South American market. In the same year, an office was established in Saudi Arabia. Within five years the new office in Dammam, all previous inline inspection and reporting records of the Saudi Aramco pipeline network were broken. More than 100 pipelines were inspected during 2005.

2001
Having consolidated its market lead in the Middle East, Rosen decided to improve customer proximity by setting up an office in the United Arab Emirates (Dubai).

Along with areas around the world where Rosen has been represented for several years, new markets continued to develop such as in the CIS region. As a result, Rosen opened a sales office with a data evaluation center, in Kiev, Ukraine.

2003
PHARS was established in Emsbueren, Germany to produce polyurethane products. It set up its own polyurethane synthesis and manufacture center in order to produce high-performance elastomers with properties that were not available in the market (e.g. extreme abrasion resistance). Originally an internal supplier of polyurethane products, ROPLAST is now one of Europe’s largest PUR cast elastomer manufacturers. The use of intelligent plastic systems is not restricted to the oil and gas industry. Innovative users of renewable energy have recognized the advantages of a combination of intelligent system technology and PUR high-performance elastomers.

An office was established in Perth to support the office in Melbourne and to expand Rosen’s presence in the Australian market.

Because of the tremendous focus on all aspects of the oil and gas business in the CIS countries (there are an estimated 400,000 km of pipelines in Russia alone), an office was opened in Moscow.

2004
Rosen opened an office in Rio de Janeiro to establish contacts and contracts with the largest companies in Brazil and other South American countries.

2005
The offices in Zoetermeer and Oldenzaal, the Netherlands, merged and moved to the new building in Oldenzaal. This facility combined several parts of Rosen Europe that had operated from different locations.

2007
A new technology and research center was opened in Bogota, Colombia. In the same year, PHARS became ROPLAST.

2008
New offices were established in Bogota and in Newcastle, UK.

2009
Rosen Integrity Solutions, a new subsidiary specializing in integrity software, was founded in Lingen, Germany.

2009 also saw the establishment of a new technology and research center in San Luis Obispo, CA. This site specializes in Electro-Magnetic Acoustic Transducer (EMAT) technology and develops non-destructive testing inspection tools.

2010
Due to substantial growth and to ensure its continued ability to meet the expanding needs of the market, reorganization of the Rosen Group was essential. The new group structure provides the necessary flexibility and ability to satisfy customer demands in a timely and efficient manner.

Special Projects/Technological Feats

Rosen tool that was used to inspect the Langeled pipeline: 40/42-inch dual-diameter inspection tool.

2009
World record: inspection of the longest subsea pipeline. With a total length of 1,170 km, Langeled Pipeline connecting Nyhamna in Norway and Easington in Great Britain is the world’s longest subsea gas pipeline. Having been awarded the contract for a single-run inline inspection, Rosen was faced with a project that was both exciting and challenging. The pipeline posed several difficulties: its unparalleled length, dual-diameter (42-inch and 44-inch sections) with high wall thickness, and its high product flow velocity. To ensure a successful single-run inspection of this extremely long pipeline, Rosen designed a customized inspection tool combining MFL and SIC technology. In the course of 127 hours, the tool covered a surface of 3.83 km² on which about 450 billion measuring points were taken. A total of 374 GB worth of data was collected.

2009/2010
Novel pipe cap system for corrosion protection and monitoring developed. A system for the protection of pipes stored outside for use in subsea pipeline constructions was developed by ROPLAST and used in the Nord Stream Baltic Sea pipeline construction project. More than 200,000 pieces of the intelligent pipe caps were produced for the project which won the 2010 German Logistics Award of the German Logistics Association (BVL).

Pipe caps that were produced for the Nord Stream pipeline.

The novel pipe end caps consist of a combination of high-performance elastomers with sensors on the one hand and communication and software technology on the other. This combination constitutes a complete protection system. A central control system collects real-time data transmitted via self-assembling wireless networks and on that basis provides comprehensive documentation and data evaluation.

2011
To date, the Rosen Group has inspected more than 1 million km of pipelines worldwide.