Hear from Steven Mackay, MD Critical Infrastructure – Facility video
CRC Evans, the leading welding and coating specialist for energy and infrastructure projects, has announced a major European facility investment that will drive future international growth.
The new state of the art 90,000 sq ft facility in Burnley will be one of the largest end-to-end specialty welding, coating and engineering hubs of its kind in EMEA.
Strategically located in the North West of England, the new supersite will drive a new phase of international growth across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South America.
The Centre of Excellence will position Europe as a central platform within the CRC Evans international operating model, as it meets demand across conventional gas markets and accelerates diversification into nuclear, defence, aerospace, renewables and critical infrastructure. The new site will also provide a headquarters for CRC Evans’ Critical Infrastructure Division.
Mauro Piasere, CEO at CRC Evans, said:
“This investment marks a decisive step in delivering our global growth strategy. Building on this momentum, our new Burnley development will double our operational footprint, strengthen our leadership in specialty welding and coating, and establish a European Centre of Excellence equipped to support the most demanding infrastructure markets worldwide.”
“Burnley has been part of our European story since 1988. Today, it becomes a critical platform for international expansion, responding to growth in our core markets and enabling diversification into nuclear, renewables and critical infrastructure.”
By consolidating advanced manufacturing, engineering, compliance-led operations and digital systems integration within a single purpose-built environment, the facility creates a scalable platform to deliver consistent, high-integrity solutions across both legacy and emerging energy and infrastructure sectors.
The new site has been designed to meet the most demanding industry and regulatory standards, incorporating contamination-controlled workflows and strict material segregation. These capabilities are essential in nuclear and other highly regulated environments, where supplier selection depends on proven performance, traceability and tightly controlled manufacturing conditions.
New EMEAA Centre of Excellence at 90,000 sq ft takes shape
Steven Mackay, Managing Director for the Critical Infrastructure Division, added:
“The scale and capability of Burnley significantly strengthens our position in regulated infrastructure markets such as nuclear, defence and aerospace. These sectors demand absolute assurance around compliance, traceability and operational control.
“This investment creates the operational foundation to support sustained growth in critical infrastructure markets while providing our global clients with the highest standards of specialty welding and coating expertise.”
The facility also strengthens CRC Evans’ ability to integrate advanced welding and coating technologies with digital assurance systems, including its proprietary cloud-based Data 360 platform.
By embedding digital traceability, quality assurance and performance visibility into operational workflows, the Burnley Centre of Excellence enhances data integrity and client confidence across complex and regulated environments. The site will serve as a development and deployment hub for next-generation automation and specialty welding and coating technologies across CRC Evans’ global operations.
Backed by more than 90 years of technical expertise, CRC Evans continues to expand its international presence in response to evolving energy and infrastructure demands. Operating in more than 100 countries, the company supports complex onshore and offshore projects worldwide, delivering high-performance specialty welding and coating solutions across oil and gas, renewables, nuclear, hydrogen, carbon capture and critical infrastructure.
As part of its long-term commitment to deep technical expertise and globally local delivery, the Burnley expansion also strengthens CRC Evans’ cross geography investment in skills development and workforce capability.
CRC Evans has successfully completed work on a hydrogen pipeline in Europe, further enhancing the Group’s expertise in this new area of pipeline welding.
Located in Romania’s Black Sea Podisor region, the pipeline spans over 50km and includes both 40-inch and 48-inch pipeline diameters. At 12.5mm wall thickness, the 40-inch diameter section required 2,800 mainline welds, and at 14.2mm wall thickness, the 48-inch diameter section required 2,300 mainline welds. The pipeline, which was initially intended to transport natural gas, was redesigned to be constructed as ‘hydrogen ready’ in a move to support lifetime extension and future use.
One of the key challenges with hydrogen pipeline welding is weld procedure qualification, an operation carried out to test the proposed parameters to ensure the integrity of a weld. Pipeline welding involves multiple variables, such as current, voltage, travel speed, pipe thickness, weld position and temperature, where each variable is an influencing factor. Delivering the ideal values for these variables is necessary to ensure optimum weld quality and that the weld can meet the intended application.
To meet hardness and quality requirements CRC Evans’ welding and metallurgy experts conduct a combination of different welding processes using the same welding system, to support the development of a procedure that is applicable to all environments. An additional challenge when dealing with hydrogen is that it has very small atoms that can permeate the steel microstructure and increase the risk of stress corrosion. Ensuring low steel hardness can improve operational outcomes by combatting embrittlement and the enhanced risk of pipeline steel cracking. This requires experienced technicians with a deep understanding of materials.
On this project in Romania, CRC Evans worked closely with our customer to understand the requirements of the infrastructure and provided an innovative solution based on the modification of an established approach. This allowed the company to deliver a reliable welding procedure utilising its mechanised P625 dual torch welding system, where the resultant qualified parameters were able to meet the specific project requirements. The speed and effectiveness of this solution can be directly attributed to the company’s broad expertise spanning 90-years of pipeline delivery for its energy and wider infrastructures customers.
CRC Evans Strategic Growth Director, Leon Dashwood said “Governments around the world are setting out hydrogen strategies to support decarbonisation goals and plans for targeted investment across industrial, transportation and energy sectors. Hydrogen is becoming increasingly important in the drive to reduce global emissions.
“Part of this transition will be the delivery of vital new infrastructure to support the manufacture, storage, and transportation of hydrogen, ensuring its safe and reliable delivery. As trusted infrastructure specialists, CRC Evans has the experience and capability to become a key partner in the hydrogen market.”
CRC Evans is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement for the Sale of its Quantive Group inspection business, for an undisclosed sum, with completion expected to formally take place in January.
Proceeds from the divestment significantly enhance CRC Evans’ capital position, which will support the company’s growth and strengthen focus on its core welding and coating service delivery. The move is aligned with the Group’s overall strategy and reinforces CRC Evans’ commitment to becoming the preferred partner for the evolving global energy and wider infrastructure sectors.
For the buyer, the acquisition of Quantive Group helps to consolidate its standing in the inspection market. Both companies are market leaders with complementary core competencies and customer-centric approach with a strong foundation in operational excellence and safety, which will help to ensure a seamless transition and uninterrupted service and support for clients.
The Transaction comprises the Sale by CRC Evans of its shareholdings in the Quantive Group LLC, together with associated subsidiaries.
Pipeline Technique (PTL), a leading provider of welding and coating solutions to the global onshore and offshore energy sectors, has entered into a long-term agreement with Subsea7 for the provision of welding and field joint coating services.
Under the terms of the agreement, PTL will provide Subsea7 with access to both a team of experienced specialists, and cutting-edge equipment, building upon the pre-existing and long-standing relationship between the two companies.
PTL supports customers’ projects through the consistent and progressive delivery of global rigid pipeline systems, locally tailored solutions, automation and strategic supply chain partnerships. The company has recently acquired the Oil & Gas division from Stanley Black & Decker, a major international pipeline services and equipment provider, bringing together two long term suppliers of Subsea7 and further strengthening this collaboration agreement.
Ben Mackay, Chief Operating Officer for PTL, said “By offering predictability, we can provide Subsea7 with a robust foundation for long-term planning and enhanced project performance. We look forward to contributing to more efficient operations benefitting both parties.”
PTL Chief Executive Officer, Frederic Castrec said “PTL’s close working relationship with Subsea7 spans several years, and this collaboration agreement forms the basis for its long-term continuation.”
Following a recent award for the supply of manpower and personnel services on the Subsea7 spoolbase in Ingleside, Gulf of Mexico, PTL has now commenced operations onsite.
The scopes to be completed are for deepwater developments in the Gulf of Mexico, each containing flowlines and steel catenary risers.
