A North Slope of Alaska facility separates three-phase flow (produced water, oil, and natural gas) from four drill sites. Each of the drill sites has a three-phase production line that flows to the central facility. One of the three-phase pipelines was inspected by a magnetic flux leakage (MFL) in-line inspection (ILI) tool in 2008. The inspection showed significant internal corrosion with features measured up to 37% of wall thickness loss primarily in first 1 mile from the drill site. Most of the significantly corroded features are located between 3-4 o’clock and 8-9 o’clock positions. The results of the 2008 MFL ILI, corrosion inhibitor partitioning tests, corrosion modeling, and multiphase flow simulations were used to determine the potential corrosion mechanism in the line and to recommend corrosion control measures. The mechanism was determined to be a special case of “top of the line corrosion”.

Subject
Corrosion rate, Top of the line corrosion, Inline inspection, Slug flow, Pipelines, Liquids, Flowlines, Flow regime, Stratified flow, Interfaces, Fluids, Corrosion inhibitors, Corrosion mechanisms
Keywords:
North Slope, Pipeline, Top of Line, Multiphase Flow, In-line Inspection, Magnetic Flux Leakage, MFL, ILI
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2013
Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP)
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