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Technology
The mitigation of sour corrosion at
lower treatment rates Image Credit : ChampionX
Hussen Ouji, technical lead engineer, ChampionX, discusses how the company performed a chemical qualification study of corrosion inhibitors (CI) for an international oil company in Iraq and customised a treatment programme to alleviate corrosion risk in the field. Figure 1: ChampionX participated in corrosion testing for a wellhead and central processing facility in Iraq.
ORROSION IS ONE of the most prominent and costly issues facing the oil and gas industry today. With pipelines and associated equipment exposed to extreme environments, from production through to refining, failure to consider or mitigate corrosion can lead to the costly shutdown of operations and potentially create a hazardous and unsafe working environment. It is estimated that the total annual cost of corrosion in the oil and gas industry is US$1,372bn. This figure can be broken down into US$589mn on surface pipeline and facility costs; US$463mn annually in downhole
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Issue 4 2021
tubing expenses; and another US$320mn in capital expenditures related to corrosion (https://www.nace.org/resources/industriesnace-serves/oil-gas). Unlike general corrosion, pitting corrosion is the proliferation of cavities or "holes" in the
It is estimated that the total annual cost of corrosion in the oil and gas industry is US$1,372bn.”
material. This form of irreversible, localised corrosion is considered more dangerous as it is difficult to detect, predict and design against. Even a small, narrow pit with minimal overall metal loss can lead to the failure of an entire engineering system. Pitting corrosion, which, for example, is almost a common denominator of all types of localised corrosion attack, may assume either a hemispherical or a cup-shaped appearance and can produce pits with their mouth open (uncovered) or covered with a semi-permeable membrane of corrosion products. While working on a project for an international oil company in Iraq, concerns
