CorrOcean is moving to establish a more regular presence in Brazil, where it sees a good potential market for its pipeline integrity management and corrosion monitoring expertise and products.
The Trondheim-based company already has a good working relationship with Petrobras, which has tested and made a number of purchases of its MultiLog data loggers and hydraulic probe retriever, reports Kjell Wold, director of marketing and sales. It has also shown interest in other products of the company, and further systems tests and trials are planned in the near future.
CorrOcean's unique hydraulic retrieval tool for retrieving and replacing corrosion probes and weight loss coupons has been used by oil companies around the world for more than a decade. About half the size and weight of traditional tools, it can be used in locations with limited access space. The tool's hydraulic operating principle makes it both more efficient and safer than mechanical tools, Wold says.
Last year CorrOcean acquired Oslo-based Robit whose line of products for the response monitoring and inspection of flexible pipelines complements its own technology for performing the same functions in steel pipelines.
Robit also has expertise in the response monitoring of deep-water risers used in exploration drilling, which could also prove of interest in Brazil, not only to Petrobras but to other oil companies now pursuing upstream opportunities there.
The company has lately been involved in the deep-water drilling program underway in the Norwegian Sea off mid-Norway, providing instrumentation for measuring the riser dynamics during the drilling of a number of wells including BP's Nyk High well in 1,274 meters of water, Statoil's Vema Dome well in 1,238 meters, and Shell's Helland Hansen well in 684 meters. The data collected has been analyzed to throw light on vortex induced vibration within the riser.
CorrOcean made its name with products such as the Field Signature Method (FSM) for monitoring corrosion in pipelines. Recent deliveries include BP's ETAP and Amerada Hess's Hudson pipelines in the UK, and an order for two systems for the Sable Offshore Energy Project off eastern Canada has been received this summer.
FSM is a non-intrusive method of monitoring at locations where corrosion is considered most likely to occur. It detects changes and distortions in the electrical field pattern which are due to corrosion events. The system requires virtually no maintenance.
A philosophy of integrity management should be developed at the design stage for a pipeline, taking in aspects such as pipeline design, materials selection, corrosion monitoring and control, and inspection, Wold says. Corrosion has now developed a program - Corpos - which predicts how the corrosion profile changes along the length of a pipeline.
The program is a useful tool to identify the best technical and economic solutions based on life cycle cost considerations. Continuous corrosion monitoring of a pipeline may contribute both to extending the life of a pipeline, due to improved corrosion control, while at the same time lowering operating costs by reducing the use of intelligent pigs.
Operators are becoming more aware of the benefits offered by this approach. For an operator such as Petrobras with an extensive system of subsea pipelines, much of it in remote depths, such a system could be of great interest, in his view.
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