%0 Journal Article
%T Advances in Asset Management Techniques: An Overview of Corrosion Mechanisms and Mitigation Strategies for Oil and Gas Pipelines
%A Chinedu I. Ossai
%J ISRN Corrosion
%D 2012
%R 10.5402/2012/570143
%X Effective management of assets in the oil and gas industry is vital in ensuring equipment availability, increased output, reduced maintenance cost, and minimal nonproductive time (NPT). Due to the high cost of assets used in oil and gas production, there is a need to enhance performance through good assets management techniques. This involves the minimization of NPT which accounts for about 20¨C30% of operation time needed from exploration to production. Corrosion contributes to about 25% of failures experienced in oil and gas production industry, while more than 50% of this failure is associated with sweet and sour corrosions in pipelines. This major risk in oil and gas production requires the understanding of the failure mechanism and procedures for assessment and control. For reduced pipeline failure and enhanced life cycle, corrosion experts should understand the mechanisms of corrosion, the risk assessment criteria, and mitigation strategies. This paper explores existing research in pipeline corrosion, in order to show the mechanisms, the risk assessment methodologies, and the framework for mitigation. The paper shows that corrosion in pipelines is combated at all stages of oil and gas production by incorporating field data information from previous fields into the new fieldĄ¯s development process. 1. Introduction The oil and gas industry is an asset intensive business with capital assets ranging from drilling rigs, offshore platforms and wells in the upstream segment, to pipeline, liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, and refineries in the midstream and downstream segments. These assets are complex and require enormous capital to acquire. An analysis of the five major oil and gas companies (BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Exxonmobil, and Total) shows that plant, property, and equipment on average accounts for 51% of the total assets with a value of over $100 billion [1]. Considering the huge investment in assets, oil and gas companies are always under immense pressure to properly manage them. To achieve this involves the use of different optimization strategies that is aimed at cost reduction and improved assets reliability [2]. Due to the growth in the demand of oil and gas around the world, companies are developing new techniques to reach new reservoirs in the offshore and onshore arena [3]. This is putting pressure on most of the facilities with the attendant cost of maintenance soaring [1]. The continuous utilization and the ageing of facilities have resulted in record failures in the oil and gas plants. Research shows that between 1980 and 2006,
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.corrosion/2012/570143/