Return to Natural Gas Corrosion / Pipeline Integrity Work

Since the existing economy in California is difficult for a corrosion engineer trying to make a living doing water and waste water projects, I find myself back in the natural gas pipeline business. Currently doing pipeline integrity projects related to inline inspection (smart pigging).

 

Once upon a time, smart pigs were expected to find corrosion pitting and third party damage (dents and gouges), but not expected to see much construction or manufacturing defects. That was before recent events that now have smart pigs expected to do more integrity inspection tasks.

 

The pressure is to make smart pigs capable of accurately sizing defects that a majority of existing smart pigs cannot detect. This creates a market for improved smart pigs that will soon make many existing smart pigs obsolete.

 

I plan on posting some blog articles on various topics soon.

 

My current gig is a one year long contract job scheduled to end in March 2013. Naturally, I am looking around for my next gig. However, it doesn't appear I have to do all that much searching to get a new assignment somewhere.

Santa Fe 3751 in Claremont CA

Santa Fe 3751 Leaving Los Angeles Union Station on 1 May 2010

Just for fun a video I took of Santa Fe 3751 leaving Los Angeles Union Station for San Diego, California with passenger cars full of Railfans who love steam locomotives.

Pipeline 101 - Basic Info on Operation of Oil Pipe Lines

Pipeline 101 is a website sponsored by the oil pipeline industry and the members of the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Association of Oil Pipe Lines (AOPL). Basic information about the operations of a pipeline can be found at Pipeline 101.

NAPCA - Excellent Website for Pipe Coating Information

An excellent website for getting information on pipeline coatings is NAPCA (National Assocation of Pipe Coating Applicators.  The technical information on this website will not be as detailed as an NACE International or AWWA (American Water Works Association) pipeline coating specification, but it is useful none of the less.

In addition, it has an excellent listing of pipeline coating mills, pipeline coating suppliers, and contacts inside the pipeline coating industry.  I periodically find myself on their website getting needed information.

Corrosion Engineering and Twitter

I appear to be as best as I can tell one of the few persons in the Corrosion Control Industry using Twitter.  Two reasons why I have come to this conclusion is:

• that I find only a few corrosion control companies, organizations, or individuals listed on Twitter.'
• both SSPC and NACE International have only a few individuals following their Tweets.

I believe this may change eventually.

I have not found Plaxo to be all that useful in networking with other persons in the corrosion control industry but LinkedIn does have a small group of corrosion control professionals.  

As far as blogs on corrosion control there appears to be only a few.  Some of the corrosion control blogs are not active.  The tendency for the corrosion control blogs is to market services like DCVG surveys.

Facebook appeared to be corrosion control industry free until the Alexander reference cell invasion.  Facebook is now the number one sales website for new and experimental cathodic protection monitoring equipment. 

I have toyed with the idea that this blog would be informational and attempt to avoid controversial topics in the corrosion control industry.  However, the huge Alexander reference cell marketing  program has me pondering if I should be commenting on that matter in this blog.  Not since the late "WaveForm Analyzer " marketing program which turned out to be a failure in improving pipeline integrity have I seen such a marketing program to sell something new and improved for cathodic protection monitoring.   

The WaveForm Analyzer existed in a pre-smart pig (metal loss inline inspection tool) pipeline integrity program environment.  There is now a limited market for new and improved cathodic protection equipment in the USA oil and natural gas pipeline industry in a post-smart pig world.  I tried to explain this fact to a Canadian that came across the border to the USA to market DCVG surveys, but it took a lack of interest by pipeline operators using smart pigs to make him realize market reality for DCVG surveys.

There is a limited market for DCVG surveys in a post-smart pig world on pipelines that fall under gas transmission rules per 192 that cannot be smart pigged.  This is a fact and that is the market for DCVG surveys.

I tend to get shot at for being the messenger of what is reality in the corrosion control industry.  There is nothing wrong with DCVG surveys but smart pigs not DCVG surveys are the pipeline inspection tool of choice by new 192 and 195 federal guidelines.  Reality is that the Office of Pipeline Safety in Washington D.C. now days has a major impact on what tools a pipeline operator can or cannot use in doing an acceptable pipeline integrity program per 192 and 195 federal code minimum requirements.

My Twitter user name for my Corrosion Control Tweets is @CorrosionENG.  It is short for "Corrosion Control Engineer".

NACE International on Twitter

NACE International has recently started using Twitter.  The user name for NACE International on Twitter is @NACETweet.