English Views: 0 Author: Eternal Tech Team Publish Time: 2026-09-29 Origin: Site
Against the backdrop of continuously increasing investment in oil and gas exploration and development, manufacturers of oil wellhead equipment and drilling tools are facing an increasingly acute contradiction: downstream demand growth is clear, while upstream forging supply frequently falls short. In 2025, the global market for specialized oil drilling and production equipment is approximately US$57.3 billion, and offshore oil and gas exploration and development investment has maintained double-digit growth for four consecutive years, with expectations of further climbing to US$220 billion in 2026. However, problems such as long forging delivery cycles, significant quality fluctuations, and lack of traceability are becoming core bottlenecks constraining the delivery capacity of downstream equipment manufacturers.
Recently, a batch of AISI 4145H alloy steel forgings custom-produced by Jiangyin Eternal Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. for a domestic oil wellhead equipment manufacturer successfully passed customer acceptance and has been delivered to the customer for subsequent processing into finished drilling tools. From raw material re-inspection, forging, and heat treatment to physical and chemical testing, the entire process was completed independently by our company, and complete traceability documents were issued. At the acceptance site, the customer fully affirmed our heat treatment curve traceability, completeness of mechanical property data, and hardness uniformity.
In oil and gas equipment manufacturing, the wait for forging purchases is often measured in months. Industry studies show that key forgings such as large seamless rolled rings usually take 20 weeks, or even up to one year, from order to receipt. The effects of a supply chain break can spread. A delivery delay from one supplier may directly affect the progress of the whole oil and gas exploration and development project. Some companies even have to urgently find replacement suppliers because of forging quality problems. This leads to higher costs and supply chain problems.
Our way to deal with this is to remove the “breaks” at the source. Our company has complete forging capability for finished forgings. We have open-die forging equipment and can arrange production flexibly according to customer needs. The 4145H forgings delivered this time use electric arc furnace melting plus vacuum degassing. Each heat of steel is fully killed and treated with a fine-grain process. Grain size reaches the fine-grain level when measured according to ASTM E112. From process start to finished product leaving the factory, the whole process is completed in our own factory. We do not need to rely on outsourcing. This fundamentally removes the delivery uncertainty caused by working with multiple suppliers.
In forging quality audits under the API system, heat treatment is a “most problematic area” that causes suppliers to be rejected. Industry experience shows that heat treatment failures account for a large proportion of API supplier rejection reasons. Broken traceability chains, mixed-heat heat treatment, and missing heat treatment curves are the most common systemic failures.
For the 4145H forgings delivered this time, the entire heat treatment process followed an approved written test-piece procedure. Quenching and tempering temperatures were strictly controlled within the specified ranges: austenitizing and quenching temperature was controlled at 840–870°C, and tempering temperature was controlled at 580–680°C. The quenching medium temperature was monitored in real time. During water quenching, the temperature during immersion did not exceed 49°C. A complete heat treatment report was issued for each batch, including temperature curve charts and furnace loading configuration photos. At the same time, we have qualified box furnace temperature uniformity testing capabilities. The austenitizing temperature deviation is controlled within ±14°C, and the tempering temperature deviation is controlled within ±8°C, ensuring property consistency of every bar in the furnace.
In terms of mechanical properties, the forgings accepted this time achieved: tensile strength 965–1103 MPa, 0.2% yield strength not less than 827 MPa, elongation after fracture ≥14%, reduction of area ≥45%, -20°C impact energy single value ≥36J and average value ≥54J, and hardness range 301–341 HBW. These data all come from QTC qualification test specimens. The specimen orientation was longitudinal, ensuring the sampling cross-section was away from the heat-treated surface, so the test results truly reflect the base material properties.
As oil and gas exploration moves into deep, ultra-deep, and deep-sea areas, drilling tools face extreme conditions of “three highs and one ultra” — high temperature, high pressure, high sulfur, and ultra-high load. For example, in ultra-deep wells in the Tarim Basin, underground temperatures exceed 200°C. This places demands on impact toughness and grain size that are far beyond normal standards. Customers continue to raise their requirements for 4145H drilling tool products in areas such as impact absorbed energy, grain size, and inclusion content.
To meet this trend, our company, based on 4145H material, controls impurity content in steel by improving the smelting process. In particular, we carry out sulfide morphology control on the amount and shape of MnS inclusions. Every heat of steel undergoes complete chemical composition analysis. Carbon content is controlled within 0.42%–0.49%, and phosphorus and sulfur are both controlled below 0.015%. This ensures the material’s impact toughness reserve under extreme conditions.
Customers in the oil and gas equipment field have a strict certification process for forging suppliers. Once a supplier enters the approved supplier list, it usually forms a long-term, stable partnership. But in real audits, many suppliers do not fail because of technical ability. They fail because of systemic traceability gaps: missing heat treatment records, incomplete forging process cards, and broken traceability chains when multiple batches are mixed.
Our company’s quality document system was built according to international standards from the very beginning. The Material Test Certificate (MTC) delivered this time meets the requirements of EN 10204 Type 3.1. It fully records the purchase order number, heat number, heat treatment batch number, forging ratio, chemical composition analysis, heat treatment curve chart, quenching temperature records, QTC type and dimensions, specimen location, tensile and impact test results, hardness results, grain size, and non-destructive testing results. From bar number to heat treatment batch number, every step has a unique identifier. This ensures that at any point in time, we can trace back to the smelting heat of the raw material.
Our company has a complete manufacturing capability that integrates forging, heat treatment, and machining, and is equipped with a physical and chemical laboratory. We can independently complete chemical composition analysis, mechanical property testing, metallographic structure analysis, grain size measurement, and hardness testing. For customers in the oil and wellhead equipment industry, we provide not only forging blanks, but a complete, traceable, and validated material solution.
From the optimization of the smelting composition of 4145H alloy steel, to forging ratio control, and then to the full-process closed loop of heat treatment process parameters and physical and chemical testing data, every step is completed independently by our in-house team, which takes full responsibility. This integrated capability means shorter delivery cycles, more stable quality performance, and lower supply chain management costs. For customers who need custom forgings for oil wellhead equipment, choosing a supplier with full-chain capabilities is essentially paying for the delivery certainty of the entire equipment project.
