Spotting the invisible risk with CUI monitoring

It started when operators spotted a small pinhole leak in a 30 year old gas pipe. While they jumped to isolate the line, it catastrophically failed, narrowly avoiding a major gas release.

That’s just one story about a pipeline failure. Many more have been reported. Remember, it was just a small pinhole from corrosion. With sufficient oil and gas pipelines to circle the world 30 times, corrosion under insulation (CUI) is an immense challenge for the industry. And spotting at-risk areas has relied entirely on costly physical inspection – until now.

The risk of CUI

US$2.5 trillion annually: that’s the amount revealed in the NACE Impact Study when considering the global cost of corrosion across all sectors and geographies. It is a staggering figure that puts the spotlight firmly on asset corrosion – not least in the oil and gas industry.

The sector insulates many pipes, pressure vessels and other components to safeguard the fluid inside and maintain its temperature. Insulation also protects nearby personnel from the dangers of extreme heat or cold. But insulation presents an ‘invisible’ corrosion risk. It’s called corrosion under insulation.

Moisture (due to process condensation, rainwater, or sweating of assets due to a specific temperature range) can find its way in and deteriorate the metal surface that’s hidden away below the insulation. CUI accounts for 60% of pipeline failures in the oil and gas industry alone (as per NZTC UK).

Often undetected until substantial damage occurs, CUI can undermine asset integrity management when physical inspection methods alone fall short of reducing the risk. The sheer volume of surfaces to inspect can be overwhelming while many are almost impossible to reach without significant scaffolding.

Adding insult to injury, metals such as carbon steel can corrode up to 20 times faster under insulation than in normal aerated conditions where moisture can evaporate more easily. It’s clear to see why CUI remains an immense corrosion risk to manage.

The impact of CUI risk

There are two types of cost from CUI: direct costs and indirect costs. Both can be significantly harmful to the industry.

Direct costs

When oil and gas equipment deteriorates – or even fails – due to CUI, the associated costs can be eye-watering. Repair work may be necessary in hard to access areas. And often urgent in nature, bills can scale ever higher. Meanwhile, downtime is never a desirable option.

Indirect costs

Production losses, hampered customer service, and a damaged reputation are just three indirect costs associated with CUI instances. Depending on the severity of the damage, they can quickly scale out of control.

It’s clear the impact of CUI is a formidable challenge for asset integrity management. So much so that a step change in monitoring and identification techniques could make a significant difference. So, imagine the potential of unleashing a new dawn of technology.

Industry 4.0 changes the game for CUI monitoring

As technologies rapidly transformed, the industrial Internet of Things (IoT) in this era of Industry 4.0, disrupted sectors like nothing we’ve seen for a long time.

Today, it’s possible to connect devices that sense, store, and communicate information through wireless networks. This generates meaningful insights from raw data that accurately inform decisions and make deployments rapidly scalable. For non-technical people, such information and functionality are often provided via a user-friendly dashboard. This is certainly the case for CUI monitoring.

Thanks to digitalisation fusing with CUI management, new technology can now enable smart sensors to provide timely insight and analysis. These sensors can monitor equipment 24/7 without physical inspection, providing data that informs a predictive CUI monitoring approach.

In other words, by spotting potential failures before they occur, both maintenance costs and downtime risks fall significantly. Asset integrity engineers can focus their resources on the highest priorities and lessen the risk of CUI catching them out unawares.

How predictive CUI monitoring adds value

There’s no doubt smart sensors are providing a pivotal moment for the oil and gas industry. Being able to remotely collect data 24/7 to inform CUI risk intelligence is game-changing.

While this transition doesn’t negate the need for physical inspection, it allows organisations to allocate maintenance resources to the right areas, mitigating the greatest risks before they develop into something more serious.

Remote monitoring enhances the inspection team’s safety too. While sufficient scaffolding can help reach many areas, some surfaces are incredibly hard (and costly) to inspect physically. Far better to monitor them remotely and only access them if there’s a CUI issue to resolve.

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Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/special-reports/13092024/spotting-the-invisible-risk-with-cui-monitoring/