Oil and Gas industry uses pipelines widely to transport its products over long distances .Pipelines ensures a certain amount of safety, efficiency and its economical for the purpose. So Integrity in pipelines is essential for reliable pipeline operations for preventing expensive downtime and failures in pipelines. Pipeline Integrity and reliability study consists of the following steps.
Defect Detection and Identification
- Defect Growth prediction
- Risk based management.
In-Line Inspections are done using sophisticated pigging tools to detect corrosion, cracks or leaks.
The Benefit of Performing a Pipeline Integrity and reliability study are as follows.
- All the Pipeline data related to the facility will be analyzed and (Results and inputs) securely stored in an easily accessible way.
- Latest modelling software’s and Powerful Risk management tools available will be used for the Study.
- Dynamic visual analysis of large data amounts of pipeline will be done.
Methodology Pipeline Integrity and Reliability
An Initial Risk assessment will be conducted to identify the potential integrity issues prevailing with the existing pipelines. Appropriate actions will be recommended to address the existing issues.
Annual integrity reviews for all pipeline systems, assessing the effectiveness of the integrity programs and making recommendations for improvement where needed.
Pipeline Integrity Program – 3 steps
- Defects detection and identification: This is to obtain the information about defects in the pipeline .This is done through inspection, monitoring, testing and analysis.
- Defect growth prediction: this is performed to predict the growth of defect which is based on damage prediction models and the collected data.
- Risk-based management : the most optimal recommendations , inspection, maintenance will be recommended at this stage
Detection and Identification tools are used to collect information regarding the existing defects in the pipelines. Pipeline Defect information is normally gathered through walking along the pipeline by technical personnel, hydrostatic testing, and in-line inspection (ILI), non-destructive evaluation (NDE), etc. ILI tools are currently the most widely used for detecting pipeline defects.
Defect growth prediction is used to predict when a pipeline failure will occur and predict the growth of defect. Metal loss, Cracking Dents, Third party Damage, Weld etc. are threats to pipeline integrity. Studies are conducted on different defect Prediction models for effective integrity management.
Risk-based management will determine proper inspection intervals and maintenance and repair actions. Risk-based management models will also influence the first step and the second by possibly altering the inspection actions and defect status. The purpose of this program is to achieve accurate prediction and balance the reliability and costs in an effective way.