A Novel Method to Mitigate the Top-of-the-Line Corrosion in Wet Gas Pipelines by Corrosion Inhibitor within a Foam Matrix Available to Purchase

Top-of-the-line corrosion (TLC) has been a serious issue for the oil and gas industry. Conventional inhibition techniques are expensive and often do not seem to provide enough protection to the steel surface at the top of the pipe. A novel idea is to inject the corrosion inhibitor within a foam matrix. The foam slug is formed first at an injection port and carried along the pipe by the gas phase. This process ensures homogeneous delivery of the inhibitor to the pipe wall along pipe sections suffering from TLC. This paper presents a comprehensive study performed in an innovative glass cell setup which consisted of a foaming cell and a corrosion cell to simulate intermittent contact between the foam and the steel surface. Corrosion measurements were performed using electrochemical techniques (electrochemical impedance spectroscopy [EIS], linear polarization resistance [LPR], potentiodynamic sweep) and electrical resistance (ER) measurements to determine the inhibitive performance of investigated inhibitor talloil diethylenetriamine imidazoline (TOFA/DETA imidazoline) within a foam matrix (sodium C14–16 olefin sulfonate).