The project led to reducing the number of spills of the carbon steel corroded flowlines, in addition to saving the operating cost of the corrosion inhibitor, frequent lines inspection, and repair. The total length of installed pipes was 26,000 meters as a first phase.

What are the challenges in the existing pipeline infrastructure that you wish to overcome?

The original oil gathering network had all internally bare carbon steel which was poorly protected by corrosion inhibitor chemicals. The flowlines consisted of bare carbon steel pipes that suffered from frequent corrosion failures in recent years due to increasing water cuts.

The consequences of failures are spills and lost production for pipe repairs. Due to increasing corrosion failures, a full failure analysis was done using corroded samples by the Mining Studies and Research Center (MSRC) and Central Metallurgical Research and Development Institute (CMRDI) of Cairo University.

The results showed that the corrosion potential of the produced fluid in the field is high due to a considerable amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen (O2) combined with high quantities of water. The high water cut )WC)  ensures the continuous presence of a water phase in contact with the bare internal carbon steel pipe surface.

An internal review was done and a decision was made to replace and install new flowlines with pipe having an internal corrosion barrier(Spoolable Flexpipe).

What are the advantages of spoolable flexpipe over carbon steel?

Spoolable flexpipe is easy, quick and safe to install; saving30-40% of total installation cost and duration.It is nonmetallic so it is corrosion-free; hence, there is no need to corrosion inhibitor program, pumps and monitoring system. Its smooth bore ensures much lower flow resistance and improves flow capacity. Overall, it is a better solution for sour environment.

How do you evaluate the performance of a project’s execution?

We can evaluate the execution of a project as follows: safe installation, with zero lost time incident (LTI) recorded; professional execution team and supervision; installation schedule and procedure commitment; proper installation equipment and tools; excellent installation progress reporting; and a high-level managerial follow up and collaboration.