Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Devonian Black Shale as a Possible Pipeline Corrosion Issue



Warren Anderson gave me permission to post this email on this blog.  I have no comment on this and you can contact Mr. Anderson as this name below has a hyperlink to his email address.   If any desire to comment on this issue to me; I am interested in hearing what you have to say about this.



Mr. Hodgman,

I saw your corrosion control engineer blog and wanted to make contact concerning some pipeline corrosion issues we have in Kentucky.  I am a research scientist and geochemist at the University of Kentucky and saw that you had an interest in this area of pipeline corrosion that I have done some research in. 

I have done some preliminary work in the Devonian Black Shales in Kentucky where about 30-40 % of pipeline failures in our state have occurred when the pipeline is sited in the Black Shale.  There are geochemical reasons for this, the shale contains pyrite, an iron sulfide which oxides and forms a mild sulfuric acid, lowering the pH of groundwater and accelerating the corrosion of any steel pipelines.  The Beaumont, Ky pipeline disaster noted this in the NTSB reports.   Building anything in organic black shales is troubling, but pipelines have the potential for catastrophic events, so I have been trying to get some  research funding to study this problem..

If you know anyone in the eastern US who has pipelines in black shales please pass this message on to them.  I have a report out on some severe foundation problems (heaving) in the black shales, http://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/kgs/ri18_12.pdf,  which would also extend to pipelines.

Good blog, Keep up the good work.

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