World Pipelines’ Integrity 2021 starts tomorrow

Integrity 2021 offers a two day programme packed full of interesting and insightful pipeline integrity content. Tune in for presentations from industry leaders on a range of hot topics, including defect assessment, coatings, leak detection, pigging and ageing pipelines.

Speakers will be talking about the following topics:

Effective pipeline integrity management (regulatory and compliance)

Mike LaMont, Director, Pipeline Integrity Services, TRC Companies, Inc.

Mike specialises in pipeline integrity management and regulatory compliance strategies. Through the application of process-driven, holistic strategies, he successfully supports large and small pipeline operators in achieving their programme goals and objectives. Mike presents a call to action: analyse your organisation at a human level and reap the rewards.

New and old challenges: unpiggable pipelines, life extension, hydrogen, extreme environments (codes and standards)

David Baxter, Fitness for Services Team Lead, Energy Systems, DNV GL

David will present a review of the principles of pipeline integrity management and the typical challenges that are faced. David's presentation will identify some of the old challenges such as unpiggable pipelines and life extension, along with some emerging challenges, including the use of hydrogen in pipelines and the management of pipelines in extreme environments.

Corrosion management: how are we doing? Review of current USDOT/PHMSA statistics (training and certification)

Timothy Bieri, Chairman of the Board, AMPP: Association for Materials Protection and Performance and Vice President for Materials & Corrosion Engineering, bp

Corrosion management is a key component of pipeline integrity management. Understanding the credible corrosion threats and utilising the appropriate barriers to mitigate those threats serves as a solid foundation. A continuous improvement approach is also integral to a sustainable corrosion management programme. Tim will review current statistics from USDOT-PHMSA to understand the importance of corrosion management and will share what AMPP is doing in the areas of standards, training and certification relevant to pipeline corrosion and integrity management.

Mechanical damage assessment (dents and metal loss, classification and validation)

Matt Romney, Senior Product Manager, T.D. Williamson

Pipeline operators rely on the latest technologies and processes to confidently detect, identify and size pipeline threats.?Mechanical damage defects are usually formed when the pipeline surface is damaged through unintentional impacts from activities in or around the pipeline route resulting in geometric changes (e.g. dents) and metal loss (gouging). While T.D. Williamson has offered a mechanical damage assessment for several years, recent research enhancing the company's gouge classifier has provided the validation data required to augment this assessment with performance specification details. The validated gouge classifier will pave the way for future development of depth sizing, allowing for a more rigorous assessment of the feature.

Optimising asset performance using big data (analysis of factors that affect condition)

Roland-Palmer-Jones, Head of Group Business Line Integrity Solutions, ROSEN Group

For many pipeline networks, effective integrity management that prevents rapid degradation is a key element in ensuring high performance and getting the best return from these valuable assets. The question is: what factors contribute to maintaining an asset in good condition, at a reasonable cost, so that the best performance can be achieved? Roland considers the influence of intangible factors, which can indirectly affect the condition of assets, drawing on condition information from 6700 pipelines (29 million pipes), covering 43 countries, 580 networks and over 100 million metal loss features.

Coatings preservation in HDD installations (field joint coatings)

Ron Raphoon, Consultant – Winn & Coales (Denso) Ltd

This presentation will look at the importance of evaluating the impacts that the HDD installation method has on pre-approved anti-corrosion field joint coatings and mainline coatings (such as liquid epoxy coatings, heat shrink sleeves, 3LPE, 3LPP and FBE coatings). Ron will evaluate failure mechanisms in these areas and how they occur, and will explain why the traditional approach to protecting anti-corrosion systems in HDDs has been lacking and requires a new approach.

Fibre optic monitoring and machine learning (leak detection)

Steven Koles, President & CEO, Hifi Engineering

Distributed fibre optic sensing has been gaining significant momentum in pipeline industry adoption. The primary application of this technology has been in preventative leak detection. However, new value-added applications are now emerging with potential to deliver extra value to the pipeline operators, over and above leak detection. Case studies will be provided to showcase the value of using artificial intelligence and supervised/unsupervised machine learning to explore new frontiers in pipeline monitoring; including a variety of ‘value added’ applications such as flow anomaly detection, flowrate, pressure, and density estimation.

Overcoming pig loading and removal access constraints (pigging)

Dale Millward, Technical Advisor, STATS Group

The inability to access existing pig launching and receiving facilities due to inadequate isolation capability is a common access constraint for pipelines. The lack of adequate isolation valves or pipelines where launchers or receivers are absent can result in essential pigging activities being delayed or conducted less frequently than required. This presentation will explain how the appropriate application of temporary double block and bleed pipeline isolation tools, and if required hot tapping intervention techniques, can be used to create or restore safe access to pipelines for pig loading and removal operations.

Statistical calculation of remaining life of pipeline assets (decommissioning, ageing pipelines)

Nigel Curson, Executive Vice of President of Technical Excellence, CEE, Penspen THEIA Limited

Nigel's presentation looks at a hypothetical oilfield, based on a typical North Sea step out development with declining production and an ageing pipeline, and uses statistical analysis to calculate the present value of the assets: taking account of the statistical variation of commodity price, decline in production, degradation rate, cost of inspection and cost of repair variations. The presentation presents sophisticated methodologies that take actual live data and use this to dynamically calculate remaining life.

Real-time inspection of subsea pipelines (scanning, data, diagnostics)

Jim Bramlett, Commercial Manager, Tracerco Ltd

Jim will discuss example data obtained by Tracerco’s pioneering subsea CT scanning technology during global pipeline inspection projects (including wall thickness mapping through concrete coatings, piggyback and pipe-in-pipe lines). Jim will also present recent examples of internal and external corrosion data obtained for clients. Inspection of pipelines subsea has often presented challenges, where pigging is not an option or deemed too risky. Inspecting a pipeline from the outside can be costly and is often an ineffective high-risk operation. Tracerco can break down this barrier to inspection by achieving online inspection of the pipe from the outside without removing its protective coating.

Don’t miss the live Q&A sessions following every presentation, where you can put your questions directly to the experts.

Finally, there is an online exhibition section where you’ll have access to a range of interactive networking features, including chat, video conferencing and, of course, the virtual exhibition.

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

World Pipelines’ April 2021 issue

The April issue of World Pipelines includes a regional report on oil and gas pipeline activity in the Gulf of Mexico, along with technical articles on corrosion prevention, unpiggable pipelines and repair and rehabilitation. Don’t miss the article on hydrogen pipelines!

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/27042021/world-pipelines-integrity-2021-starts-tomorrow/