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Jumping Through Hoops to Reach European Cylinder Compliance

By Neil Ormrod, managing director, TPA Europe

TPA has been involved in the lpg industry for 40 years but is a relatively new player in the cylinder manufacturing field. The company is currently jumping through hoops to attain European compliances.

TPA began mass-producing lpg cylinders at its 33,000m2 site in Shenzhen in May 2007. Since then, orders have been flowing out to New Zealand, Taiwan, Macau and the United States and, in December, its first delivery will be shipped to South Africa. But what of Europe?

In Europe, we always seem to have more hoops to jump through than anywhere else and lp gas cylinders are no exception. As well as EN1442 and EN14140, these products also come under the Transportable Pressure Equipment Directive (TPED) and so require Module B (Type Testing) and Module F (Manufacturing and System Approval), plus other local compliances.

TPA is now in the final stages of TPED certification for its lpg gas cylinders and valves with the assistance of SGS UK Ltd, which is helping to make the process more straightforward and making regular inspection visits to the factory with the assistance of SGS China. We will shortly be supplying lpg cylinders into Europe, initially against contracts with Shell Gas and SHV.

The TPA plant is entering the second phase of its expansion. Currently producing 200,000 lp gas cylinders a month, it will eventually have a capacity in excess of four million items per year on two and three item production lines. An investment of over $5 million has meant new equipment in both our manufacturing facilities and our highly equipped laboratories. X-ray, burst testing, leak testing, fatigue testing, etc, are all carried out onsite.

TPA’s offering does not end with lpg cylinder production. As an approved lpg gas cylinder valve manufacturer, we are also offering fully valved lp gas cylinders. It’s a one-stop shop and we are looking at reducing carbon emissions by cutting out the transportation of valves to cylinders. Ours are moved a few hundred metres by pallet trucks!

The vision of Victor Lin, CEO of TPA, is for the company to become the biggest and best manufacturer of lpg cylinders in Asia, and TPA’s global network is helping to move the strategy forward at a great pace. The next stages will be to examine more ways of reducing the cost to the environment and enhancing ease of use for the end user.

The company’s future is certainly not just dependent upon composite cylinders; higher-grade steel is currently being evaluated with our partners within lp gas companies to reduce weight loads for transportation whilst still retaining the strengths of steel.

We are also looking at the flexibility of point of sale, with many ideas for promotion and protection using shrink-wrap and enveloping on top of the paint or powder coating finishes. TPA is also bringing forward a completely new idea for transportation and storage that will offer major advantages both for heath and safety and the time aspect of loading and unloading containers.

One point that is always raised when discussing supplies from Asia, and China in particular, is shipping time on top of production time on top of design time. At TPA, we have looked at ways of improving this and have come up with quite a straightforward solution.

The TPA site currently occupies 3 million square feet of factory and warehousing space. Within this, we have a 400-container storage capacity plus ground storage. With partner cooperation, we can offer warehousing space for produced orders, which means delivery in approximately 30 days from call-off. The TPA facilities are within a 90-minute drive of the Hong Kong and Yantian ports, a perfect position logistically.

A lot of hard work has taken place in the development and opening of our new plant, and there is still a lot of work ongoing. There are many aspects and new ideas evolving all the time.

Even though TPA has been involved in the lpg industry for 40 years, we are a new player in the lpg cylinder manufacturing field but, with this newness, we feel that we can bring more innovation and originality to design, materials, packaging, finish and promotional partnerships. We have jumped through the hoops, and we are now moving forwards.

Contact TPA Engineering Ltd on 01527 501670 www.tpagas.com