Moving boldly forward with Pipeline Integrity

Our teams provide comprehensive pipeline integrity management solutions, including in-line inspection, data management, integrity engineering and a full range of field services, all geared toward higher productivity, greater safety and longer life for our customers’ pipelines.

Looking back through our past, you will see a long-standing commitment to the industry’s future. We invest aggressively to develop breakthrough technologies. We work closely with customers and industry associations to target our efforts on the most important challenges. And when you hear about our latest breakthrough, we’re already at work on the next.

ThreatScan™ monitoring system boosts pipeline security

Third-party damage is the world’s leading cause of failures in both gas and liquid pipelines. While some damage causes immediate failures, other times damage can go unnoticed, only to develop into costly leaks or failures years later. Technology capable of reliably determining when pipelines are struck, such as during construction activity, farming or other ground excavation, provides a major step forward in ensuring the safety of transmission pipelines and additionally security of supply to customers. “It also demonstrates our commitment to GE’s ecomagination™ initiative to help customers meet environmental challenges” said Claudi Santiago, president of GE’s Oil & Gas business.

Launched in late 2006, ThreatScan was designed to address specific shortcomings of alternate monitoring methods: to provide a cost-effective means of reliably monitoring the entire pipeline length 24 hours a day; and to ensure fewer false calls and rapid notification of the location of any impact.

“The major benefit for ThreatScan is that operators will immediately know when and where their pipeline has been struck,” said Santiago. “Armed with this information, operators can investigate what happened, rapidly repair any immediate failures or damage that may cause future failure and take action to ensure it will not happen again.”

In addition to immediately notifying operators of specific impacts in a given pipeline, ThreatScan service provides monthly summaries of dates, times and locations of all impacts, further enhancing the operators’ risk analysis and ability to establish long-term, third-party damage mitigation plans.

ThreatScan quickly notifies operators of all potentially harmful impacts to their pipelines. The system is extremely sensitive and can filter out incidental noise while still detecting even the most minor pipeline strikes that otherwise might go unnoticed. Onboard processing and subsequent signal analysis provides detection of real events, sparing operators from needlessly deploying their resources.

Using ATEX-certified sensors, an on-site processor, satellite communications equipment and, when appropriate, a solar-based autonomous power supply, ThreatScan is easily installed on existing above-ground pipeline structures and fittings. This allows pipelines to be retrofitted without excavation and makes the new product suitable for deployment in “high-potential areas” even on a temporary basis.

Major US pipeline operator calls for ThreatScan

Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline is the largest natural gas network operator in the central United States. The company operates 6,000 miles of pipeline in four states with annual throughput of 293.3 Bcf. It is the first North American pipeline operator to install ThreatScan as part of its pipeline integrity management program.

Of key concern was a 13-mile line segment running through a highly populated area of Wichita, KS. Half the segment is in an HCA with schools and hospitals, etc., and 75% is in a Class 3 zone. In 2006, there were 1,400 one-calls on the segment and two near misses for which there was no notification at all. With new IMP procedures, Southern Star would have had 1,200 encroachment forms or line markings.

The northern Wichita area is experiencing a great deal of urban expansion, with construction encroaching upon Southern Star's nearby 16-inch, natural gas pipeline, spurring the company to install ThreatScan to monitor for accidental contact by work crews – in hopes of reducing the cost of false-alarm responses while increasing public and asset safety.

Vibrations are detected by ThreatScan sensors and instantly routed to GE call centers in Houston, Texas, and Florence, Italy, where the data is quickly analyzed and the contact decision is made.

“ThreatScan is proving to be everything we thought it was and much more” Warren Etheridge, Manager of Pipeline Compliance. “ThreatScan will help us improve safety and reliability for our customers and the Wichita community. Although it is an impact-detection system, we are working with GE to demonstrate its capability to also warn of potential third-party encroachments in time to protect the line.”

Crack Ranking leads to better risk assessment and remediation plans

Another new introduction from GE's PII Pipeline Solutions business is an advanced Crack Ranking methodology that helps pipeline operators prioritize remediation programs, based on the severity of any cracks detected in a given pipeline. The new process is designed to fill a critical service need in the industry as an increasing number of cracks and crack colonies are being detected in pipelines around the world.

Traditional, conservative methods only report on the maximum depth and overall length of cracks, without identifying which ones pose the greatest potential risk.

Because repair decisions can be financially and logistically overwhelming for operators, the global oil and gas industry has been demanding a new, next-generation process that not only measures cracks but can also reliably discriminate defects based on their true likelihood of failure.

“We regularly invest in technologies that help pipeline operators make more informed, cost-effective decisions when it comes to evaluating and planning potential repairs,” said Manuel Terranova, General Manager - Integrity Services for PII Pipeline Solutions. “Our new service gives operators an accurate foundation on which to base their crack management and maintenance plans, thereby helping them effectively control repair costs while meeting regulatory mandates.”

The new methodology utilizes fracture mechanics to provide an Estimated Severity Factor for every crack and crack field in a given pipeline, providing a criticality ranking for each crack.

“Think RSTRENG for cracks.” says Terranova. “We've developed a more sophisticated analysis technique that accurately prioritizes individual cracks and SCC colonies.” By combining UltraScan™ CD's long history of successful inline crack detection with new, advanced algorithms, PII produces higher-quality crack descriptions similar in detail to RSTRENG calculations of corrosion defects.

PII's Crack Ranking process measures crack depth every 3 mm (118 mils) along the axial profile, enabling effective depth and length to be calculated. Its software algorithms, validated against in-ditch measurements, calculate detailed axial profiles for the crack-like defects identified during the inline inspection.

The company's filtering techniques break through the signal noise associated with SCC colonies to discriminate between individual cracks and determine the level of interactivity present between them. Significant cracks within a colony are then mapped and interaction criteria are applied to identify the most likely failure path. Interaction and failure-pressure prediction criteria were adopted from actual detected SCC colonies subjected to NDE and burst testing.

The sophisticated analysis uses fracture mechanics to provide an Estimated Severity Factor for every crack and crack-field in the pipeline. It provides a criticality ranking of each crack in the pipeline. The new Crack Ranking service gives customers an accurate foundation on which to base crack management and maintenance plans. It is also an extremely practical solution – helping control repair costs while meeting regulatory compliance.

For more information, please contact Laure Brooks at laure.brooks@ge.com.