Inspect Offshore Pipes

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Business Intelligence for the Offshore Industry

In association with Subsea Integrity Conference (SSIC), Europe 2014 Process safety

Difficult To Pig And To The road to highPipes reliability Inspect Offshore Exclusive white paper by Innospection In December 2009 veteran drilling executive Kevin Lacy exited as BP’s vice president for drilling and completions in the Gulf of Mexico. At the time he saw significant planned organizational changes, a risk-heavy set of deep water wells, along with pressure to reduce costs. Four months later came the Macondo blow-out. Here he explains why oil and gas is far from being a “high-reliability” sector yet, and how we might start moving in that direction.

Kevin Lacy, Global Senior Vice President for Drilling and Completions, Talisman Energy (retired)

Innospection is a specialist in electromagnetic inspection technologies such as Eddy Current and SLOFEC™. We have successfully delivered advanced non destructive testing solutions to the worldwide process industries such as the Oil & Gas (on- & offshore) Industry, Refineries, Chemical Plants, Power Plants and other process industries for over 10 years. With experienced inspection engineers and an innovative R&D team, Innospection has created an enviable reputation for applied expertise, quality and effective delivery within the industry.

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When I left BP I was there be problems, but when I saw Macondo unfold on DIFFICULT TOconcerned PIG AND TOmight INSPECT OFFSHORE PIPES the news Innospection I was aghast. IGermany couldn’t GmbH, have predicted anything of that magnitude. Prior to that I K. Reber, Stutensee, Germany would have said a major catastrophe S. Hartmann, Innospection Ltd., UK in deep water might have been measured, cost-wise, by around a billion dollars. If somebody A. Boenisch, Innospection Ltd., UK said ten billion I might or might not have debated it. For something to come in at forty billion was, and is, just incredible. When I was deposed as part of the hearings in the Macondo incident the big question I kept getting asked was, did anyone tell me to cut corners or sacrifice safety in the interest of cost? Introduction And the answer, obviously, was no. It would be rare to find a senior leader give a directive to sacrifice safety or to cut corners at the expense of keeping people safe. When it comes to a fast, non-intrusive, complete and meaningful inspection of an offshore pipeline in-line (ILI) has been “tremendous the method of choice for several costs decades now. There was, as I inspection stated in my deposition, pressure” to reduce at BP. PartHowevof a er, not all pipelines, piping or other tubular structures can be inspected with in-line inspection senior leadership role is to manage that pressure so it doesn’t distract people or get in the way tools (pigs). The method usually limited looping flow lines export pipelines, of sound decisions. It wasisthis pressure ontocosts combined withorthe inherent risk ofspecifically running designed for ILI operation. The remaining structures are often summarized under theinbuzzword eight to ten deep water rigs that gave me concern in light of the proposed changes the “non-piggable”. organization and the new people being placed in key roles. In a time of great change with many new managers we know that people will not be comfortable in raising concerns – it is basic The typical ILI viewpoint is to consider the piggability under either the aspect of pipeline design human nature. or pipeline operation. Typical piggability issues in pipelines under pipeline design aspects are launching/receiving andof internal obstructions. The other aspects opera-that The changes during facilities, that timebends, were part a bigger corporate reorganisation and Iare worried tions-related. ILI may be impossible due to too high/low flow, too high temperature and other. it was all too much. I suddenly found myself being told that there was not a role for me in the In both cases ILI solutions can still be conceived and realised by either changing the pipeline or new organization. I signed an agreement regarding my departure and was obligated, until parts by adapting the pig. The latter is the technically more interesting solution for service providing of my deposition were made public, not to speak of the circumstances of my departure. About companies. providers are busy in and designing and already offerDecember tools for multiple a week later ILI Talisman Energy called I left BP GOM in early 2009. diameters, for bi-directional operation and tools with special insertion techniques. Also there are many solutions available a cable operated toolI’dand/or a crawler tool. Discussions on in employer Chevronthat had use benchmarked very well. announced my type retirement from Chevron solutions for unpiggable pipelines usually focus on these types of solutions. 2006 not knowing where I was going next and got a call from a recruiter representing BP. The initial role was to provide western hemisphere oversight. In 2007, they asked me to lead a study There an area of inspection tasks that canoperations, be summarized underunit “Not at was all piggaon thestill Gulfremains of Mexico drilling and completion (D&C) a business that having ble”. For either technical or financial reasons, a pig-like solution may still remain unfeasible. challenges. Halfway through the study they asked me to take over the D&C organization as In well some the involved risk group may also as the cases Health, Safety and technical Environment for convince the GOM.the involved parties to refrain from any ILI adaptation. In these cases either key-hole solutions or external inspection may remain the only option. The distinction between a key-hole solution and a pig-based inspection can be made by thethe aimgroup to reach a 100% coverage in the latter saw case.a For other turnaround inspection types a lower reorganised in 2008 and, as a consequence, dramatic in inspection coverage is usually accepted. performance in that year and the next. We went from bottom in the internal performance league – in terms of safety, hitting capital budgets, production ahead of schedule and so forth – In addition to the top. to these topics there is another category of reasons, why a pipeline may be considered unpiggable. This concerns problems that are due to the available inspection technology inspection task. Other authors piping suffering from this problem rather Iand hadthe ongoing concerns with the risk ofhave deepnamed water drilling operations, concerns that started uninspectable than unpiggable. This accounts for the fact, that a pigging operation is not back when I was at Chevron. They stemmed from just too many things going on related to an inspection, the passing of a pig. If arigpig canexpanded pass, but by theclose pipeline is notover simultaneously within thebut industry. The deep water fleet to 300% inspected, because available inspection techniques do not detect defects, the pipeline is several years along with much turnover between drilling contractors and so I worried about the uninspectable. Figure 1 is giving an overview of the different categories of inspection. erosion of the level of competency that we were accustomed to, particularly at the driller and tool pusher levels. These deepwater wells are very complicated. There are downhole conditions that even very intelligent people struggle accurately to asses. The time when you had a drilling foreman who has seen everything and knows what to do in every situation is long gone. The challenge with process safety and well control now is that the major incidents are so infrequent that there is a general sentiment that these things don’t happen, or won’t happen – unlike with personnel safety, where there’s enough going on for the risk to be visible and in people’s minds.

What I think we can conclude about Macondo is that the event itself was caused by very basic mistakes in well control but the consequence, and the size of the consequence, was a result of deepwater conditions. Blowouts have always been a concern but this level of consequence has got to be completely unacceptable in our industry and cannot just be dismissed as “bad luck”.

People versus process The public reaction to Macondo was standard: blame the individuals, and write new processes (along with hiring new frontline people to enforce them). But I believe the response needs to be deeper than finding a scapegoat and finding a process gap. The lesson I take from this is that there are three necessary parts to building a process safety culture. One is leadership, one is the actual process or standards, and then there is the culture itself, how we work. Those three things should work together dynamically and reinforce each other. The problem is, it’s infinitely easier, especially for engineers and technical people, to write a new process. But we have enough processes, and it is pretty rare these days to find a truly writing a new one we have to ask the tough questions. Why was it not being used? Does the leadership know it well enough to talk about it with the frontline, to reinforce it? Culture, behaviour, how we talk to each other, and about what – for engineers that’s all pretty fuzzy, so the reflex is to create more process, more regulation, more audits, and beefed-up equipment.

highly evolved and embedded. The question is always: did the mechanic, the pilot, the crew Figure 1: Overview and classification of inspection solutions depending on the inspection environment. Further follow thewill process? That’s wheremethods we have to move to. I’m very skeptical about new layers of discussion be about the inspection encircled in red. procedure being added when basic well control procedures, if followed, would work very adequately to prevent another If an inspection technology canMacondo. be redesigned to work on an ILI-tool this inspection task will then become standard ILI operation. This process happens all the time. Here we shall focus on Do we have culture technique problem? cases where the ainspection is not “pig-mountable”, or the technology does not work from the inside. This remains the realm of external inspection, in most cases an external scanNorth American but culture wants lessanprocess, legislation. There is an adversarial mindset ning technique, possibly also externalless monitoring. among industry players and between industry and the regulator. The values can be expressed by particular statements ‘less isinspection adequate’,the anddeployment ‘experienceof is the a better guide than a highly codified In forlike external inspection device is a major aspect process’. There is operation. a strong independent streak, as well. The concept communal responsibility of the inspection In the offshore industry, different parts ofofstructures demand that you see in of parts of Europe, fordeployment instance, is method foreign. will very much depend on the exact different levels inspection. The location of the inspected pipe section. An overview of different deployment methods is given in I think this hastwo consequences. It isare nodeployment surprise to me that onshore safety performance Figure 2. The main methods from top-side or personal deployment subsea from an in North is among the worst in the world. the prevalent culture in oil and gasIfin ROV or aAmerica diver. Recent technical developments aimI think at avoiding diver operated inspections. North America present but, having saidwill that, cultures I’ve worked in 15 deployed from does top-side oftenchallenges rope access technicians be all required todo. position or clamp a device to the pipe to be inspected. For subsea deployment a work class ROV will position the norms and to hitch those tostart yourto engine change.controlled. device and on avalues spot on thetrypipe, where it will moveof remotely The strongest on cultureinare the regulatory environment, company leadership, and Obviously the influences structures inspected this manner are not only pipelines, but any tubular compeers. In the context a salient weakness theissue fact of that the penalties for and ponents. WithNorth such American an extension of the inspection scopeisthe inspectable material allowing compositions disasters to happen generally financialThe as opposed, to antubular individual goingistonot material is evenare more pronounced. fact that asay, certain structure jail. At Chevron in make countries where the of mistakes could be prison. That really a pressure vesselI worked does not a difference forresult the external inspection. makes you sit up and pay attention! Immediately I thought, how do I prevent someone I’ve

second-in-command briefed that person comprehensively on how they did things. You think much more deeply about losing your personal freedom than you do about your company paying a fine on your behalf. As for leadership in North America, there are several problems. What’s emphasised most, overtly or tacitly, is production and cost reduction. That combines with the rugged individualism prevalent in the American psyche. Pressed to follow a new procedure that claims to be more gas industry historically has reinforced this. On the subject of disasters, it is very common for drilling managers to say ‘this won’t happen’. I have sympathy with this. What they really mean is, it’s highly improbable. And they’re right: it is one-in-hundred-thousand chance of something the scale of Macondo happening? One-in-a-million? What does that even mean? This creates a kind of vacuum in terms of what to focus on so it’s easier to say, either out loud or in your private thoughts, ‘this won’t happen’. The way to avoid this trap is to say, yes, it will happen. It will happen to somebody, somewhere, at some point in time. That’s all but guaranteed. Now, what are we going to do to make sure it doesn’t happen to us? It’s a subtle but profound shift in thinking.

High reliability If you fly domestically in the US, it will strike you just how unnervingly young some of the pilots and co-pilots seem. But the training they receive is comprehensive, the safety culture they operate in is pervasive, and the expectations on them to conform to it are rigorous and uniform. Figure 2: Different methods for deployment depicted This is the approach pioneered by so-called “high-reliability organisations” in the airline, nuclear power and other industries, where mistakes just cannot happen. The likelihood of disaster on a To illustrate the inspection technique, as well as the deployment challenges a few case studies plane is very high if you do the wrong things, while on an oil well you can generally get it back shall be presented. At Innospection SLOFEC in combination with UT spot checks has been under control unless you do some really fundamental things wrong. found to be an adaptable testing technology for the various tasks described above. The SLOFEC technology has been described before [1]. In essence it consists of an eddy current technology How does our industry compare to the airline industry? We’ve done a lot of work over the past under simultaneous magnetization of the pipe to be inspected. This allows for the inspection of 20 years on personnel safety. It’s now statistically safer to work on a drilling rig than on a farm wall thickness reductions and can be used not only for bare carbon steel pipe, but also for a or a construction site. But if you factor in well control as a measure, and you create a safety combination of metals and polymers. The polymer itself, which can be a coating or another scale of one to four, I’d put the airline industry at four and oil and gas at around one or two. structural part of the pipe, is not inspected, but also does not impede the inspection of the metallic parts. consistency, the culture and the expectations.

Case Studies For example, there are some generally accepted procedures for well control, and there is an and understanding. If you compare the responsibilities of a pilot landing an airplane to those of Internal Leg Inspection The task had been to inspect the inside of a platform leg for corrosion type defects. Access was well-control driller needscm. theIn same level there of proficiency and training only possibleincident, through suddenly a hole of the a size of 15x35 addition was an internal cone and process a pilot needs. blockingback-up straight that access at the location of the hole. An internal inspection from the top was not possible due to various internal objects. The inspection was required from the elevation of the Various things setinto high-reliability organisations apart.coverage They don’t a single person to be hole downwards the water level. An inspection asever highallow as possible was desired. the agent in aleg set isofshown actionsinthat could Thesole access to the Figure 3. lead to system failure. They also have global standards – there are certain ways planes are flown whatever country the pilot’s from.

The road to there DuPont uses a term, “felt leadership”, to describe its philosophy of process safety management. It means that frontline people at DuPont should feel the sincerity, the consistency, and the commitment of management to safety. How? By the managers being visible in the field, talking about the issues, demonstrating by their engagement that they really care. Their task is constantly to keep the culture alive, and to challenge, to pause and ask questions. Are you sure about this? What’s changed, what’s new? They support peer-to-peer challenging, too. It’s a daily, evolving conversation. The man who recruited me to Chevron many years ago, Carnie Block, “got” this even before there was a fancy term for it. When he went to the field, he tried never to have more than one conversation. If he was there to talk about safety, that’s all he talked about. If it was business, it was business. He didn’t want to dilute the purpose of his visit. That made a big impression: it Figure 3: Thewith access forhow a keyhole inspection of asignals. leg registered me we send mixed For Carnie it wasn’t just ‘the company line’, it was a true internal value and it didn’t change even if they were behind forecast. The devised inspection tool was required to be sufficiently narrow. It is shown in the right part of Figuredeficiency 4. Process is rarely the fault of the process. Very few people intentionally make mistakes In its final configuration ofthey a SLOFEC unit for corrosion testing, a camera for visual but they may not followisa consisted process, or may not know about it, or, over time, process inspection and a PEC unit for quantitative wall thickness testing. PEC stands for Pulsed corner-cutting is reinforced when nothing bad happens right away. This is how processEddy Current andpropagates. is also widely in inevitable, the testingbut of offshore structures [2].a culture in which deficiency It’s used almost what combats this is somebody else can speak up and say, hang on, that’s not what we do, and where the leadership is constantly asking questions, probing, making sure people are not getting complacent. Only such a living, holistic system of checks and balances will keep small errors from escalating into major incidents. • Speaking at DecomWorld’s in Houston, 29 September-1 October, in Houston, Kevin Lacy recently retired from Talisman Energy as Senior Vice President of Drilling and Completions. After spending 26 years with Chevron, Kevin joined BP in July 2006, where he became VP for Drilling and Completions in the Gulf of Mexico

Figure 4: Left: The arm to mount the scanner on the hole. The scanner (right) could be lowered into the leg by the means of a steel rope. The pulley was inside the leg.

The left of Figure 4 shows the device that allowed for mounting the scanner internally near the hole and also allowed for swiveling the scanner around the internal surface.

Riser with external Monel cladding The task in this case consisted of the inspection of a riser which was externally clad with a Monel alloy. Monel is an alloy with high Nickel content. Nevertheless it is not magnetic, but electrically conductive. It shows excellent resistance against corrosion.

The riser had to be inspected for external corrosion, i.e. metal loss in the interface between Monel and steel. The particular interest was in the splash zone. The device had to be attached below a riser clamp, which is shown in the right of Figure 5. ILI in risers is usually possible, if the corresponding pipeline is piggable. However, the data often shows poor quality, as the speed is uncontrolled.

Figure 5: Left: The inspection device for a mock-up testing. The red encircled spot shows a SLOFEC device scanning in the circumference. The right shows the device being deployed from top-side and performing its inspection in the splash zone.

The left of Figure 5 shows the device being tested. The scanner itself is shown in the red circle. The cladding had overlapping parts with the overlap welded in the circumferential direction. The scanning had to be in the circumference, because signals originating from the weld would have masked defects underneath. Scanning in the axial direction of the riser would have been a much easier task. The device consists of a lower rotating part and an upper stationary part. Both parts can be opened to allow for clamping onto the riser. The SLOFEC technique can be adapted to measure through layers of conductive material, if the material is not magnetic. In addition cameras observe the scanned area. Workshop verification tests have shown, that metal loss in the carbon steel riser can indeed be observed in this manner. In the particular project it was possible to show the absence of defects. The technology also demonstrates the principal ability to inspect internal CRA lined or cladded pipe.

Inspection of flexible riser The issue of inspecting flexible risers is complex and has been discussed before [1]. They are a good example of uninspectable pipeline, as pigs have been passing through flexible riser often. The inspection of flexible risers is of utmost importance. A considerable number of flexible risers are known to have damage in the outer sheath. This will lead to degradation and reduces the calculated lifetime. The degradation mechanisms usually consist of water ingress, flooded annulus, and corrosion in the armored

wires and reduced fatigue life time. The deployment method is also of major interest. In the project shown here the riser had to be inspected near the splash zone, but to water depth at least to -20m. The scanning is done in the axial direction. Since the scanning needs to cover the full circumference and the orientation of the device on the riser needs to be defined, the device can also rotate on the riser. The left of Figure 6 shows Innospection’s MEC-HUG™ tool that uses hydraulic power to run axially and circumferentially on the riser pipe. The MEC-HUG™ tool is equipped with buoyancy block on top visible in Figure 6. Once the tool is submersed, it floats and freely moves in water by the hydraulic motors. The steel rope remains attached for safety reasons but is no longer required to steer the tool. Encoder wheels on the tool allow for positioning the device. The right in Figure 6 shows an excerpt of the inspection report. The typical helical structure of flexible riser pipe is visible. The full circumference is scanned with different tracks. They are later concatenated to yield the full picture. With a given datum point any position on the riser can be reached and reinspected.

Figure 6: Left: The MEC-HUG™ tool being attached to the riser. It runs in axial an circumferential orientation. The inspection is performed while running axially. The data is shown on the right.

Unpiggable Subsea Pipeline In this project the task was to inspect an unpiggable subsea pipeline. It was deemed possible that the pipeline suffered from top-of-the-line corrosion. Hence the focus was on the top position for inspection. The coating consisted of a 3-layer Polyethylene with a thickness of a few mm. Sections of several meters were to be inspected. A rough cleaning had to be performed prior to inspection. The inspection tool is a modified MEC™-CombiCrawler. It is seen lying in front of a Work class ROV in the left of Figure 7. Again it is equipped with buoyancy to ensure no resulting torque is exerted on the tool when running on the pipeline. This allowed to tool to also run stable in the 11 and 1 o’clock position.

Figure 7: Left: the inspection tool (modified MEC™-CombiCrawler) lying in front of a work class ROV. Right: Tool deployed on subsea pipeline scanning over the pipeline.

The right in Figure 7 shows the tool running on the pipeline performing an inspection using SLOFEC and UT Wall thickness measurements. The tool remains connected with the ROV over an umbilical. The data is transferred through the ROV in real-time.

Conclusion There are various reasons why pipelines or other tubular offshore structures are difficult to inspect. In-line inspection is a matured and widely accepted method to gather integrity related information. Structures, where only external solutions will yield meaningful results, are of particular interest, as this constitutes an emerging inspection market. Compared to standard ILI many of the solutions are still in an early stage of development. Nevertheless new methods and means of deployment yield important information. Eddy Current Testing in various configurations in combination with ultrasonic wall thickness measurement has shown to be a promising technology for difficult to pig and to inspect pipes.

Bibliography [1] K. Reber and A. Boenisch, "Inspection of Flexible Riser Pipe with MEC-FIT™," in PPSA Seminar, Aberdeen, 2011. [2] P. Couzen and I. Munns, "Pulsed Eddy Current Corrosion Monitoring