Pipeline Integrity Assessment

Pipelines are key assets for operator companies and their continued integrity underlies successful business performance. They are essential to production and failures or unplanned downtime can have a major impact on company revenues. Pipeline failures can also have severe safety and/or environmental consequences. Operator companies therefore place significant emphasis on assuring the integrity of pipelines. An understanding of the current and likely future condition of pipelines is central to effective integrity decision making. Sonomatic assists operators by providing a range of pipeline integrity services, including innovative statistical analysis methods, that ensure decision making is aligned to the real conditions of pipelines.

Our pipeline integrity services cover the following:

• Analysis of ILI data. This covers statistical analysis of ILI data for measurement error analysis, defect depth characterisation and more realistic and accurate corrosion growth rate distributions.
• External automated ultrasonic verification of ILI measurements. The inspection services can be provided subsea by diver or ROV deployed tools.
• Integrity assessment based on ILI and external inspection data. Fitness for purpose assessment to B31G, VRSTRENG, modified RSTRENG, DNV-RP F101 and, where applicable for pipelines, to API 579. Probabilistic integrity and remaining life assessments are based on statistical analysis of the ILI data.
• “Re-calibration” of MFL ILI datasets based on limited external inspection based on refined statistical error analysis.
• Statistical analysis of limited coverage making estimates of the condition of uninspected material based on either external UT or internal ILI data.
• Sonomatic uses a range of statistical techniques to improve the reliability of corrosion growth estimates by detailed analysis of the effects of measurement error on either external UT or internal ILI data.
• Identification of inspection requirements for piggable lines. This includes pipeline corrosion risk assessment and integrity/remaining life assessment to identify the inspection locations, coverage, accuracy and sensitivity requirements.

Sonomatic is the leading provider of statistical analysis in support of integrity management for upstream oil and gas producers and has developed a range of innovative methods for analysis for corrosion and inspection data. These methods offer a significantly more representative view on pipeline condition and remaining life, compared to traditional methods of data analysis and application of inspection data in pipeline integrity assessments. Application of Sonomatic’s analysis methods leads to major benefits to pipeline operators through, for example, justification of extended operation or more reliable identification of threats to pipeline integrity.

• Statistical analysis for sampling inspections