The History of Powercrete

The History of Powercrete Products

     This is a brief history of the Powercrete product line.  I've gathered this information from a presentation given back in 2003 at a time when the Powercrete product line was owned by Tyco Adhesives.  Powercrete is now manufactured and sold by Seal for Life; part of Berry Plastics.

     It all began when Lone Star Industries and Shell Oil formed a joint venture to create a tougher form of concrete which would combine the strengths of epoxies with the strengths of concrete to create something new and better than either component on its own.  They succeeded and the result was Powercrete - an epoxy polymer concrete. 

     The very first application for this new product was as a pipeline casing insulator.  When sliding a pipeline into a casing pipe; something must be used to prevent the casing and carrier lines from touching (thus - a spacer).  Here is an early photo of that product:

    In 1990, on the heels of the successful joint venture between Lone Star Industries and Shell Oil; Lone Star Inc. is formed.  Lone Star worked very hard to take this new Powercrete technology and create a market shift away from concrete; toward using Powercrete as an extra physical protection of factory applied fusion bond epoxy.  They were very successful!  In 1990, Powercrete was awarded its first major project with ARKLA.  From there, the success of Powercrete (a product that evolved into today's Powercrete DD) began to gain wide acceptance throughout the marketplace and became the industry leader in its segment.

     As the early 90's passed, a new opportunity presented itself. Based on the success of the Powercrete DD product; the industry wanted a new product that would combine the physical toughness of Powercrete with a corrosion protection component that would bond well to bare steel and FBE in order to offer a stand alone Powercrete product able to be used as a field joint coating. 

     Lone Star Inc. responded and created Powercrete J.  Powercrete J quickly gains wide acceptance in the market place as an excellent coating option for bends, field joints, tanks, fittings and pipeline rehabilitation / recoat work. 

     From the late 1990's up through 2019; Powercrete (now owned by Seal for Life / Berry Global) form many new products.  Powercrete R65/F1 is created and gains large market share.  Powercrete R95 is also created and finds a home in the field joint coating world. 

     And that brings us to today.  Powercrete is a respected product in the pipeline world as both an abrasion resistant overlay and as a stand alone pipeline coating.  Congratulations to Lone Star and Shell - who had the vision and the dream to bring us this far.