The paper presents an extensive case study on the application of NACE International, Internal Corrosion Direct Assessment (ICDA) Standard Practices for 22 oil & gas production and transport pipelines owned by two pipeline operators in India. The objective of the paper is to discuss the advantages, the challenges, and the limitations of using an ICDA approach as an integrity validation tool, based on the experience of having performed all 4 steps for every ICDA on the subject twenty-two pipelines. ICDA can be used as an integrity validation tool for both non-piggable and piggable pipelines with no interruption to operations, to identify the root-cause of internal corrosion, and to provide recommendations for monitoring and mitigation options. However, as discussed in the paper, the success of the ICDA depends on a number of factors including, but not limited to, the availability of comprehensive historical operational data for the pipelines, understanding the limitations of the Internal Corrosion Prediction Model used, access to prioritized Detailed Examination sites, use of proper NDE tools and training to detect internal corrosion anomalies, and educating the pipeline operators on the requirements and limitations of the ICDA standard practices.
The paper presents an extensive case study on the application of Internal Corrosion Direct Assessment (ICDA) Standard Practices for wet-gas, liquid-petroleum and multiphase flow pipelines owned by two (2) pipeline operators in India. Twenty-two (22) pipelines were assessed following the ICDA methodologies over a period of three (3) years. The pipelines, based on the service fluids, can be classified as upstream pipelines (service fluids include crude oil, condensate, wet-gas, fuel-gas, and injection water), midstream pipelines (carrying different varieties of stabilized crude oil) and downstream pipelines [carrying refined petroleum products such as liquified petroleum gas (LPG), linear alkylbenzene (LAB), motor spirit (MS), superior kerosene oil (SKO), hi-speed diesel (HSD), furnace oil (FO) and light diesel oil (LDO)].
