Abstract
Crude oil pipelines are subject to microbially influenced corrosion (MIC), particularly in water pockets at low-lying sections of the pipeline. Unfortunately, with the currently available methods, it is difficult to monitor crude oil pipelines for the presence of MIC and the potential for MIC in individual pipelines remain largely unknown. An effective MIC assessment and management strategy will greatly improve the control of internal corrosion of pipelines. This paper discusses the research being conducted in Saudi Aramco (SA) Research and Development Centre (R&DC) in order to develop MIC assessment protocols that will introduce molecular microbiology methods (MMM) to confirm if MIC is the cause of corrosion in a specific case and procedures that will allow reliable field monitoring of MIC. In the initial stages of the project, several water and solid samples were collected from different locations of a single crude oil pipeline. The samples were analyzed and evaluated to:
Determine how many and what types of microorganisms are present in the samples through the application of MMM.
Determine the chemical nature of the water in the system through geochemical analysis.
Investigate the presence of bacteria in solid and filter samples by using Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy and Energy Dispersive X-ray (ESEM/EDS)
The results of these analyses provided necessary background information for the further implementation of MMM for MIC risk assessment in SA crude oil pipeline system.
