In their final report, U.S. investigators say thermal fatigue in a heat exchanger likely caused a major hydrocarbons release in June 2016. This resulted in a series of fires and explosions at the Enterprise Products gas plant in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
According to U.S. researchers, a localized form of nanoscale corrosion appears responsible for unpredictably decreasing the working life of steel pipes used frequently in the oil and gas industry.
Investigators with the U.S. Chemical Safety Board say a June 2019 explosion and fire at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, occurred due to a corroded pipe elbow in the refinery’s alkylation unit.
Although methods for managing internal corrosion are well established, many pipelines operators experience repeated internal corrosion incidents, suggesting opportunities likely exist for continuous improvement.
The city of Newark, New Jersey, USA, is introducing a new corrosion control treatment program and working to replace lead service lines on private property after tests have repeatedly showed elevated lead levels in drinking water.
Due to advanced plant process control system technology being used to regularly monitor plant process conditions, it is possible to incorporate online corrosion monitoring technology that can send real-time corrosion data to the plant where they can be regularly monitored along with process control data, making it possible to correlate changes in corrosion rates with process events. The real-time monitoring was tested in a carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and sequestration (CCS) plant.
In anticipation of the tightening restrictions on phosphorus and many of the metal-bearing compounds currently used in industrial cooling treatment, a “green” corrosion and scale inhibition technology was developed that contains no phosphorus while providing corrosion and scale control performance.
Due to the high carbon dioxide (CO2) and chloride content in natural gas produced by a gas field in Western China, a high-performance duplex stainless steel was chosen for gas gathering and transmission piping in this area.
The City of San Francisco needed to determine the condition of offshore pipelines and their support structures and whether they were fit to continue operating, needed repairs or replacements, or required coating or lining repair.
To protect pipelines in a transit corridor where they crossed underneath the light-rail tracks, construction of the line included retrofitting the pipelines with a precast concrete box culvert casing and installing an impressed current cathodic protection (ICCP) system.
In April 2013, the Las Vegas Valley Water District attempted to install a 500-ft (152-m) deep anode bed for an impressed current cathodic protection system. Before the anodes could be installed, ground water began flowing out of the top of the hole at ~50 gal/min (189 L/m).
To assess internal and external corrosion in piping configurations that are unpiggable or difficult to assess, a novel dynamic pulsed eddy current technology integrated with a robotic inline inspection tool was developed that is capable of internally inspecting metallic pipes.
Giving special attention to surface preparation and eliminating surface contaminants prior to coating can essentially eliminate premature coating failure.
The most damaging form of corrosion is localized corrosion, which can be prevented and controlled by using corrosion inhibitors, cathodic protection, and protective coatings.
Average annual salaries in 2016 are reported for corrosion professionals in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Europe. A slight gain was seen for the United States and United Kingdom, while a larger increase was recorded in Canada.