Pipeline Welding Robot: From Stovepipe Crews to ABB

How the pipeline welding robot grew from Big Inch stovepipe crews and 1969 CRC-Evans bugs to automated spreads, and where ABB welding robots fit in spool shops.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

10/3/20265 min read

A pipeline welding robot does the same job as the welding crews who built the first long oil lines: join one length of steel pipe to the next with a girth weld that will hold pressure for decades. This post follows that work from hand welding on the Big Inch in the 1940s to the mechanised "bug" systems CRC-Evans introduced in 1969, then to today's automated spreads and pipe spool shops. It also looks at where ABB arc welding robots and cobots fit, and which problems are still open.

Two yellow tracked machines and white welding tents on a dirt pipeline route between fields

Pipe welding on a pipeline route in Britain, with welding machines and shelters at the joints. Photo: Peter Facey / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

How stovepipe crews welded the first big lines

The Big Inch and Little Big Inch pipelines were built across the United States between 1942 and 1944 as an emergency war measure, after German submarines attacked oil tankers along the coast. The Big Inch alone ran 1,254 miles from Texas toward the north east, and the project needed about 16,000 people. The pipe went into trenches about 4 feet deep and 3 feet wide, dug partly by ditching machines and partly by hand. The joints were welded by hand. One method was "stovepiping", in which the two pipes stay still and the welder works his way around the joint.

Old black and white photo of welders in masks working around a joint in a large pipe beside a trench

Welding Big Inch pipe by the stovepipe method, with the pipes held still while the welder works around the joint, 1940s. Photo: John Vachon, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Crews on the same project also used the newer roll weld, or firing line, method. Here the pipes were rotated so the welder could stay in one position, and up to seven pipes could be welded together at the same time. Every pass still depended on one person's hand and eye. Before welding, the pipes were cleaned by pulling a worker through them with cloths.

Old black and white photo of a welder leaning over a long pipe resting on rollers in a field

Welding Big Inch pipe with the roll weld method, in which the pipe is turned under the welder, 1940s. Photo: John Vachon, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

The push to mechanise came from the sea. Once pipelines moved offshore in the 1960s, lay barges were so expensive that every minute on a joint mattered. Semi-automatic gas metal arc welding helped, but produced too many lack of fusion defects. In 1969 CRC-Evans built the first commercially viable mechanised system, using a narrow gap bevel to cut the volume of weld metal. An internal welder and clamp laid the root pass from inside the pipe, and an orbital carriage, the "bug", ran on a guide band outside to lay the hot, fill and cap passes.

A yellow tracked welding machine with a crane arm next to a long black pipe in a field

A pipe welding machine with its shelter beside a pipeline under construction in Britain. Photo: Peter Facey / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Automated spreads, spool shops and ABB robots

That design still shapes pipeline work. The CRC system dominated onshore lines for almost 25 years, and later rivals such as Saipem's PASSO and Serimer-Dasa's dual torch bugs worked on the same band and bug idea. According to The Australian Pipeliner, an internal root on a 48 inch girth weld is about twice as fast as a root made against a copper backing clamp, and it does not need highly skilled welders. Until 1995 these systems were owned by offshore contractors or rented out by CRC. After that Serimer began renting its dual torch equipment and Vermaat Technic sold single and dual head units, so more contractors could use them. Manual welding is still used for tie-ins, repairs and short runs.

A welder in a hood and safety vest crouching under a large black pipe

A welder joins sections of steel pipe by hand on a construction site in Prince George, British Columbia. Photo: Newfoundlandguy / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

CRC Evans is growing again. In late September 2026 it opened Pioneer House in Burnley, England, a 90,000 square foot centre that doubles its local operation and combines specialty welding, protective coating, engineering and digital work. Pipeline & Gas Journal reports that it will serve projects in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australasia and Latin America, and that the company is moving into renewables, nuclear and defence work as well as conventional energy pipelines. The site also adds capacity for injection moulded polypropylene, a coating that protects and insulates field joints on hot, deepwater lines.

A welding machine and white tents beside a pipe string on a grassy pipeline route

Welding lengths of pipe together on a pipeline route in Britain. Photo: Peter Facey / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

ABB does not make field girth welding bugs, but the shop side of piping is a better fit for its robots. In a pipe spool shop, short lengths of pipe, flanges and elbows are welded into sections before they go to site. An arc welding robot such as the IRB 1520ID, with its cables run through the arm, can weld while a positioner turns the pipe, and the GoFa CRB 15000 cobot with ABB's arc welding package can be taught a pipe joint by hand. These are possibilities for spool work, not CRC-style field systems. Our post on shipbuilding welding covers a similar mix of field and shop work.

A hand guiding an ABB GoFa cobot welding torch toward a pipe joint

Guiding the GoFa torch to a pipe joint before the cobot repeats the weld. Photo: ABB

Where pipeline welding robots go next

On the field side, the next step is more sensing. Bugs already follow a guide band, and seam tracking and cameras let them adjust to fit-up as the weld builds. Researchers are also training vision models to find seams on construction sites, as a September 2026 paper on seam segmentation for welding robots shows. Contractors can already choose an internal root, an external root on a copper backing clamp, or an external root with no backing using short arc power supplies such as Lincoln Electric's STT. Laser and hybrid laser processes are being tried on pipe as well, since they can lay deeper passes at higher speed.

Sparks flying from a laser weld on a round pipe end clamped in a steel fixture

Laser welding of a pipe held in a fixture, with sparks thrown from the joint. Photo: Barbara Nasiłowska / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

In shops, spool welding will look more like any other robot cell. Parts can be programmed offline from the 3D model, so a new spool does not need a long teach session, and simulation in RobotStudio lets a shop check reach and collisions before the pipe arrives. Smaller shops that cannot justify a fenced cell may start with a cobot, as covered in our post on cobot welding from job shops to garages.

Orange ABB robot arm next to a large orange welding positioner holding a steel part

An ABB welding robot and positioner in a workshop. Photo: Ana 2016 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The open problems are cost, qualification and people. A full mechanised spread is a large investment that only pays off on long runs of the same diameter. Every procedure must be qualified and every weld inspected, often with automated ultrasonic testing, so a new robot setup takes time to approve. Skilled welders are still needed to run, set up and repair these systems: in August a manufacturer in Fairfield County, Ohio announced a welding training centre and 210 new jobs.

A person holding a small teach device on the torch of an ABB GoFa welding cobot

Teaching a weld by hand with ABB's Easy Teach Device on the GoFa torch. Photo: ABB

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