SAUDI Aramco, in cooperation with US technology developer Quest Integrity, has successfully demonstrated a new flexible in-line inspection (ILI) tool designed to comprehensively inspect some of the company’s “non-scrapeable” pipelines, those that cannot be inspected by regular ILI tools.
The demonstration involved the Inspection Department’s Inspection Technology Unit and North Ghawar Producing Department (NGPD).
The flexible ILI can boldly go places that no inspection tool has gone before. Its mission is to explore non-scrapeable pipelines throughout Saudi Aramco’s pipeline networks.
Internal inspection of non-scrapeable pipelines is a major challenge for Saudi Aramco, and ILI is one of the most comprehensive and effective methods the company employs to inspect pipelines for integrity.
In-line inspection devices, informally known as “pigs,” are inserted inside pipelines to inspect their interior conditions and to scrape away build-up. Unfortunately, not all pipelines can accommodate pigs.
The new ILI tool, called “InVista,” was piloted at NGPD to test-inspect two 8-inch flow lines in Abqaiq field.
The data collected by showed corrosion at several locations along both flow lines. Selective locations were later excavated, and field verification was performed using conventional inspection techniques to examine InVista’s performance.
The verification study showed an accurate match between the tool’s predictions and actual corrosion locations on the pipes.
“This tool uses ultrasound to determine the corrosion damage areas. Generally, ultrasound is a very accurate method to measure the remaining wall thickness in pipes, and it only requires the presence of a one-phased liquid in the pipe to perform the inspection,” says Dr Ali Minachi, lead engineer for this project.
“This tool can easily be launched through a flange or a temporary attached spool and can pass through a 30-per-cent reduction in a pipe’s diameter Also, its modular design allows passage through very tight bends.”
Although the InVista tool can only inspect 3-inch to 12-inch pipes currently, the Inspection Department is working with Quest Integrity to design larger sized tools for different sized pipe used by Aramco.
