Vallourec opens to new horizons with its 2021 Open Innovation Challenge

Reaping the rewards from the previous challenges, Vallourec intends once again this year to rely on open innovation to feed its roadmap in five identified areas: new energies, new businesses, field & remote services, smart pipes & pipelines and Industry 4.0.

In concrete terms, the Group is launching three calls for projects to start-ups, laboratories and companies:

• “New power generation”: namely through marine energies such as waves, thermal differences and floating offshore wind.
• “Pipe and pipeline re-use”: to extend pipe usage.
• “Automatised and digitalised pipe yard”: to optimise inventory, inspection, and all other yard activities.

Vallourec is open to collaboration beyond these challenges and will study all proposals submitted.

“We want to develop more partnerships with agile, leading-edge companies. We combine their new technologies with our differentiating competencies and market business knowledge footprint in win-win collaborations. We are thus opening up our Group to new areas and new growth opportunities, particularly in digital services and the energy transition”, says Sylvie Dubois-Decool, Group Innovation Director.

Open innovation has been part of the Group’s strategy for decades, since the first VAM^® connections were developed through a partnership. Open innovation has been especially reinforced over the last four years, as Vallourec organised three worldwide open innovation challenges. Each of these challenges triggered win-win collaborative developments with the winners, among which the Intelligent Pipe solution developed with Openfield Technology. This solution includes miniaturised sensors embedded directly in the pipes to record and transmit information about the well's behaviour and environment in real time.

To submit an application or get more details on the challenges, start-ups, labs and companies sign up via: https://openinnovation.vallourec.com

Candidates have until September 22nd, 2021 to submit their projects, which will then go through a pre-selection process until October 7th. Applicants with pre-selected proposals will be invited to pitch their solutions to Vallourec teams and top management end of October. Decisions on the final selection will be released in November. The collaborative workshops with the winning start-ups, labs and/or companies will start in January 2022.

Read the latest issue of World Pipelines magazine for pipeline news, project stories, industry insight and technical articles.

World Pipelines’ May 2021 issue

The May issue of World Pipelines includes a regional report on Canada’s oil and gas sector, as well as technical articles on integrity management software, leak detection, NDT, and project case studies. Don’t miss our feature on young pipeliners, in which World Pipelines’ Senior Editor Elizabeth Corner interviews the winners of the John Tiratsoo Award for Young Achievement, awarded by Young Pipeliners International, in partnership with PPIM.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/13052021/vallourec-opens-to-new-horizons-with-its-2021-open-innovation-challenge/