A Case Study on Potential SCC Management Using 10-Inch EMAT ILI

Abstract

Environmentally assisted cracking (EAC), more specifically, stress corrosion cracking (SCC) has been a pipeline integrity concern since the 1960s. However, there were not many options for pipeline operators to effectively manage this threat on gas and liquid pipelines. SCC and other crack type defects have become a threat which is more widely understood and can be appropriately managed through in-line inspection (ILI). The two primary technologies for crack detection, developed in the 1990s and early 2000s respectively, are ultrasonic (UT) and electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT). Although EMAT was originally developed to find SCC on gas pipelines, it has proven equally valuable for crack inspections on liquid pipelines. A case study with a gas and natural gas liquid (NGL) operator, ONEOK Inc. (ONEOK) demonstrates the effectiveness of using EMAT ILI to evaluate the potential threat of crack and crack-like defects on a 48 mile (77.2 km), liquid butane pipeline. By utilizing both 10-inch (254 mm) multiple datasets (MDS) technology and 10-inch (254 mm) EMAT ILI tools, ONEOK proved the effectiveness of ILI to identify critical and sub-critical crack and crack-like defects on their pipeline. This paper will present on the findings from the two technologies and illustrate the approaches taken by the operator to mitigate crack type defects on this pipeline.