Integrity Management

This course will provide attendees with an overview of the considerations, key factors, industry guidelines and practices, examples, and field experience related to the design and integrity of thermal recovery wells.

The objective of this course is to review the:

• Thermal well design process, industry regulations and recommended practices (IRPs);
• Key material properties and damage mechanisms of casing and liner tubular steels, wellbore cements, and formations;
• Casing and liner design approach...

C-FER uses Monte Carlo simulation and statistical models to consider the uncertainty in all of your data. Below is a basic implementation of Monte Carlo simulation used to evaluate the burst pressure of corrosion features.

Set the size and sizing accuracy of a corrosion feature and see how the simulated burst pressure distribution compares to the nominal deterministic value. You can also modify the burst pressure model and the number of simulations ran.

C-FER can leverage historical data to assist in identifying potential threats to your assets. Interactive, web-based visualizations allow you to make quick and meaningful insights based on your data or the results of C-FER’s assessments. The following visualization explores PHMSA Incident data.  Use the slider to adjust the charted year from 1968 to 2019. Incidents are categorized based on their product, type and cause. Significant shifts in the data can be seen over years with changing...

CSA Z662 is the Canadian standard for oil and gas pipeline systems, with Annex B specifically focusing on how to perform risk assessments for pipelines. Annex B is currently under review by the Risk Management Task Force and will likely be undergoing significant changes in 2023 to include more guidance on performing risk assessments and quantitative risk criteria for both natural gas and liquid pipelines.

Task Force Chair Maher Nessim, and Task Force work group leaders Mark Stephens of C-FER...

Spirally welded pipelines (extensively used in liquid transmission pipeline systems) may contain manufacturing anomalies that are susceptible to fatigue growth. To account for the angle of these cracks with respect to the longitudinal pipe axis, modifications to inputs of crack assessment models are required.

Using the widely-used pipeline assessment model CorLAS®, we worked with Enbridge Pipelines to investigate two input modifications:

• Consideration of the normal stress component...

The pipeline industry has established various methodologies to estimate corrosion growth in pipelines. However, growth of corrosion feature length is inconsistently addressed in these methods.

We worked with Enbridge Pipelines to review these methodologies and determine the impact of feature length on corrosion burst pressure predictions.

This review:

• Considered methodologies that are applicable to both feature lengths and depths
• Evaluated the methodologies’ abilities to identify unsafe defects...

A limit states design approach has been developed for geotechnical loads using a strain-based design format. This approach addresses the high level of uncertainty associated with the loading processed, which has limited the availability of design guidance in the past.

Working as part of a joint industry project, we have carried out a project to calibrate risk-consistent limit states checks that can be used for a range of strain demand and capacity distributions applicable to geotechnical loads.

Pipeline operators are looking to understand the risks with their pipeline assets, recognize potential issues and know the best course of action to lower their risk profile. Risk and integrity management programs can help solve problems before they arise, lower costs and decrease environmental impact.

The challenge is these programs can be difficult because of the many variables that may impact the analysis. Risk management software can be complicated to use, slow to calculate...

On June 2, 2016, C-FER’s Brian Wagg presented at the Pipeline Safety Seminar in Daegu, Korea to over 400 industry leaders. During the presentation, Mr. Wagg provided insights on integrity management including:

• Requirements for developing an effective integrity management plan
• Criteria for assessing plan effectiveness
• Hazards that impact integrity
• Objectives for establishing baseline assessments
• Data required to develop detailed risk assessments
• Process for assessing defects
• Impacts of...

Overestimating the detection capability and sizing performance of in-line inspection tools can result in overestimating pipeline reliability, and can lead to failures on previously inspected pipelines.

The performance of in-line inspection (ILI) tools represents their ability to identify and size wall loss, planar (crack-like) defects, dents, and manufacturing defects. It is represented by a number of parameters including: the probability of detection (POD), probability of correct...