Pipeline Cleaning
A vital element of comprehensive integrity management is pipeline cleaning. Cleaning is necessary at every stage of the lifecycle of any pipeline and needs will vary depending on operational purpose and lifecycle stage. Cleaning strategies directly correlate with the safety, operational and performance efficiency of a pipeline.
Operational and pre-in-line inspection cleaning
Cleaning can have a dramatic cost saving effect and extend the lifetime of a pipeline. Operational cleaning is a part of regular pipeline maintenance. It ensures that water, debris, and deposits do not build up potentially allowing corrosion to develop and preventing effective corrosion inhibition. Pre-in-line inspection cleaning contributes to the success of future integrity management actions by ensuring the highest quality data can be collected.
Performance cleaning for increased asset efficiency
Contaminants such as wax, scale, corrosion products (including black dust), hydrates, emulsions, produced sands, and water can quickly affect pipeline performance and throughput rates. Even small deposits can restrict flow leading to increased costs for compression and pumping, water, wax and black dust may overwhelm separators, and filters stopping production. Therefore, it is best to clean regularly using effective proven technologies. Implementing a consistent and effective maintenance cleaning strategy, based on state-of-the-art modelling and the most effective technologies delivers maximized pipeline uptime, sustained or increased product throughput and will cut costs by reducing inefficiency.