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In association with Subsea Integrity Conference (SSIC),

Europe 2014
Process safety

Difficult To Pig And To

The
road
to highPipes
reliability
Inspect
Offshore
Exclusive white paper by Innospection
In December 2009 veteran drilling executive Kevin
Lacy exited as BPs vice president for drilling and
completions in the Gulf of Mexico. At the time he
saw significant planned organizational changes, a
risk-heavy set of deep water wells, along with
pressure to reduce costs. Four months later came
the Macondo blow-out. Here he explains why oil
and gas is far from being a high-reliability sector
yet, and how we might start moving in that
direction.

Kevin Lacy, Global Senior Vice

President for Drilling and
Completions, Talisman Energy
(retired)

Innospection is a specialist in electromagnetic inspection technologies such as Eddy Current

and SLOFEC. We have successfully delivered advanced non destructive testing solutions to
the worldwide process industries such as the Oil & Gas (on- & offshore) Industry, Refineries,
Chemical Plants, Power Plants and other process industries for over 10 years. With
experienced inspection engineers and an innovative R&D team, Innospection has created an
enviable reputation for applied expertise, quality and effective delivery within the industry.

http://ppsa-online.com/

When
I left BP I was
there
be problems,
but when I saw
Macondo unfold on
DIFFICULT
TOconcerned
PIG AND
TOmight
INSPECT
OFFSHORE
PIPES
the
news Innospection
I was aghast. IGermany
couldnt GmbH,
have predicted
anything
of that magnitude. Prior to that I
K. Reber,
Stutensee,
Germany
would
have said
a major catastrophe
S. Hartmann,
Innospection
Ltd., UK in deep water might have been measured, cost-wise, by
around
a billion
dollars. If somebody
A. Boenisch,
Innospection
Ltd., UK said ten billion I might or might not have debated it. For
something to come in at forty billion was, and is, just incredible.
When I was deposed as part of the hearings in the Macondo incident the big question I kept
getting asked was, did anyone tell me to cut corners or sacrifice safety in the interest of cost?
Introduction
And the answer, obviously, was no. It would be rare to find a senior leader give a directive to
sacrifice safety or to cut corners at the expense of keeping people safe.
When it comes to a fast, non-intrusive, complete and meaningful inspection of an offshore
pipeline
in-line
(ILI)
has been tremendous
the method of
choice for
several costs
decades
now.
There
was,
as I inspection
stated in my
deposition,
pressure
to reduce
at BP.
PartHowevof a
er,
not
all
pipelines,
piping
or
other
tubular
structures
can
be
inspected
with
in-line
inspection
senior leadership role is to manage that pressure so it doesnt distract people or get in the way
tools
(pigs).
The method
usually
limited
looping
flow lines
export
pipelines,
of
sound
decisions.
It wasisthis
pressure
ontocosts
combined
withorthe
inherent
risk ofspecifically
running
designed
for
ILI
operation.
The
remaining
structures
are
often
summarized
under
theinbuzzword
eight to ten deep water rigs that gave me concern in light of the proposed changes
the
non-piggable.
organization
and the new people being placed in key roles. In a time of great change with many
new managers we know that people will not be comfortable in raising concerns it is basic
The typical
ILI viewpoint is to consider the piggability under either the aspect of pipeline design
human
nature.
or pipeline operation. Typical piggability issues in pipelines under pipeline design aspects are
launching/receiving
andof
internal
obstructions.
The other aspects
opera-that
The
changes during facilities,
that timebends,
were part
a bigger
corporate reorganisation
and Iare
worried
tions-related.
ILI
may
be
impossible
due
to
too
high/low
flow,
too
high
temperature
and
other.
it was all too much. I suddenly found myself being told that there was not a role for me in
the
In
both
cases
ILI
solutions
can
still
be
conceived
and
realised
by
either
changing
the
pipeline
or
new organization. I signed an agreement regarding my departure and was obligated, until parts
by
adapting
the
pig.
The
latter
is
the
technically
more
interesting
solution
for
service
providing
of my deposition were made public, not to speak of the circumstances of my departure. About
companies.
providers
are busy
in and
designing
and
already
offerDecember
tools for multiple
a
week later ILI
Talisman
Energy
called
I left BP
GOM
in early
2009. diameters, for
bi-directional operation and tools with special insertion techniques. Also there are many
solutions available
a cable operated
toolIdand/or
a crawler
tool. Discussions
on in
employer
Chevronthat
had use
benchmarked
very well.
announced
my type
retirement
from Chevron
solutions
for
unpiggable
pipelines
usually
focus
on
these
types
of
solutions.
2006 not knowing where I was going next and got a call from a recruiter representing BP. The
initial role was to provide western hemisphere oversight. In 2007, they asked me to lead a study
There
an area
of inspection
tasks that
canoperations,
be summarized
underunit
Not
at was
all piggaon
thestill
Gulfremains
of Mexico
drilling
and completion
(D&C)
a business
that
having
ble.
For
either
technical
or
financial
reasons,
a
pig-like
solution
may
still
remain
unfeasible.
challenges. Halfway through the study they asked me to take over the D&C organization as In
well
some
the
involved
risk group
may also
as
the cases
Health,
Safety
and technical
Environment
for convince
the GOM.the involved parties to refrain from
any ILI adaptation. In these cases either key-hole solutions or external inspection may remain
the only option. The distinction between a key-hole solution and a pig-based inspection can be
made by thethe
aimgroup
to reach
a 100%
coverage
in the latter saw
case.a For
other turnaround
inspection types
a lower
reorganised
in 2008
and,
as a consequence,
dramatic
in
inspection
coverage
is
usually
accepted.
performance in that year and the next. We went from bottom in the internal performance
league in terms of safety, hitting capital budgets, production ahead of schedule and so forth
In addition
to
the top. to these topics there is another category of reasons, why a pipeline may be considered unpiggable. This concerns problems that are due to the available inspection technology
inspection
task. Other
authors
piping suffering
from
this problem
rather
Iand
hadthe
ongoing
concerns
with the
risk ofhave
deepnamed
water drilling
operations,
concerns
that started
uninspectable
than
unpiggable.
This
accounts
for
the
fact,
that
a
pigging
operation
is
not
back when I was at Chevron. They stemmed from just too many things going on
related to an inspection,
the passing
of a pig.
If arigpig
canexpanded
pass, but by
theclose
pipeline
is notover
simultaneously
within thebut
industry.
The deep
water
fleet
to 300%
inspected,
because
available
inspection
techniques
do
not
detect
defects,
the
pipeline
is
several years along with much turnover between drilling contractors and so I worried about
the
uninspectable.
Figure
1
is
giving
an
overview
of
the
different
categories
of
inspection.
erosion of the level of competency that we were accustomed to, particularly at the driller and
tool pusher levels.
These deepwater wells are very complicated. There are downhole conditions that even very
intelligent people struggle accurately to asses. The time when you had a drilling foreman who
has seen everything and knows what to do in every situation is long gone.
The challenge with process safety and well control now is that the major incidents are so
infrequent that there is a general sentiment that these things dont happen, or wont happen
unlike with personnel safety, where theres enough going on for the risk to be visible and in
peoples minds.

What I think we can conclude about Macondo is that the event itself was caused by very basic
mistakes in well control but the consequence, and the size of the consequence, was a result of
deepwater conditions. Blowouts have always been a concern but this level of consequence has
got to be completely unacceptable in our industry and cannot just be dismissed as bad luck.

People versus process

The public reaction to Macondo was standard: blame the individuals, and write new processes
(along with hiring new frontline people to enforce them). But I believe the response needs to be
deeper than finding a scapegoat and finding a process gap. The lesson I take from this is that
there are three necessary parts to building a process safety culture. One is leadership, one is the
actual process or standards, and then there is the culture itself, how we work. Those three
things should work together dynamically and reinforce each other.
The problem is, its infinitely easier, especially for engineers and technical people, to write a new
process. But we have enough processes, and it is pretty rare these days to find a truly
writing a new one we have to ask the tough questions. Why was it not being used? Does the
leadership know it well enough to talk about it with the frontline, to reinforce it?
Culture, behaviour, how we talk to each other, and about what for engineers thats all pretty
fuzzy, so the reflex is to create more process, more regulation, more audits, and beefed-up
equipment.

highly evolved and embedded. The question is always: did the mechanic, the pilot, the crew
Figure 1: Overview and classification of inspection solutions depending on the inspection environment. Further
follow
thewill
process?
Thats
wheremethods
we have
to move
to. Im very skeptical about new layers of
discussion
be about the
inspection
encircled
in red.
procedure being added when basic well control procedures, if followed, would work very
adequately
to prevent
another
If
an inspection
technology
canMacondo.
be redesigned to work on an ILI-tool this inspection task will
then become standard ILI operation. This process happens all the time. Here we shall focus on
Do we
have
culture technique
problem?
cases
where
the ainspection
is not pig-mountable, or the technology does not work
from the inside. This remains the realm of external inspection, in most cases an external scanNorth
American but
culture
wants
lessanprocess,
legislation. There is an adversarial mindset
ning technique,
possibly
also
externalless
monitoring.
among industry players and between industry and the regulator. The values can be expressed
by particular
statements
less isinspection
adequate,the
anddeployment
experienceof
is the
a better
guide than
a highly
codified
In
forlike
external
inspection
device
is a major
aspect
process.
There is operation.
a strong independent
streak,
as well.
The concept
communal
responsibility
of
the inspection
In the offshore
industry,
different
parts ofofstructures
demand
that you see
in of
parts
of Europe,
fordeployment
instance, is method
foreign. will very much depend on the exact
different
levels
inspection.
The
location of the inspected pipe section. An overview of different deployment methods is given in
I think this
hastwo
consequences.
It isare
nodeployment
surprise to me
that
onshore
safety
performance
Figure
2. The
main methods
from
top-side
or personal
deployment
subsea
from an
in North
is among
the worst
in the world.
the prevalent
culture in
oil and gasIfin
ROV
or aAmerica
diver. Recent
technical
developments
aimI think
at avoiding
diver operated
inspections.
North America
present
but,
having saidwill
that,
cultures
Ive worked
in 15
deployed
from does
top-side
oftenchallenges
rope access
technicians
be all
required
todo.
position
or clamp
a
device to the pipe to be inspected. For subsea deployment a work class ROV will position the
norms
and
to hitch
those
tostart
yourto
engine
change.controlled.
device and
on avalues
spot on
thetrypipe,
where
it will
moveof
remotely
The
strongest
on cultureinare
the
regulatory
environment,
company
leadership,
and
Obviously
the influences
structures inspected
this
manner
are not
only pipelines,
but any
tubular compeers.
In the
context
a salient
weakness
theissue
fact of
that
the penalties
for and
ponents.
WithNorth
such American
an extension
of the
inspection
scopeisthe
inspectable
material
allowing compositions
disasters to happen
generally
financialThe
as opposed,
to antubular
individual
goingistonot
material
is evenare
more
pronounced.
fact that asay,
certain
structure
jail.
At Chevron
in make
countries
where the
of mistakes
could be prison. That really
a
pressure
vesselI worked
does not
a difference
forresult
the external
inspection.
makes you sit up and pay attention! Immediately I thought, how do I prevent someone Ive

second-in-command briefed that person comprehensively on how they did things. You think
much more deeply about losing your personal freedom than you do about your company
paying a fine on your behalf.
As for leadership in North America, there are several problems. Whats emphasised most, overtly
or tacitly, is production and cost reduction. That combines with the rugged individualism
prevalent in the American psyche. Pressed to follow a new procedure that claims to be more
gas industry historically has reinforced this.
On the subject of disasters, it is very common for drilling managers to say this wont happen. I
have sympathy with this. What they really mean is, its highly improbable. And theyre right: it is
one-in-hundred-thousand chance of something the scale of Macondo happening?
One-in-a-million? What does that even mean? This creates a kind of vacuum in terms of what
to focus on so its easier to say, either out loud or in your private thoughts, this wont happen.
The way to avoid this trap is to say, yes, it will happen. It will happen to somebody, somewhere,
at some point in time. Thats all but guaranteed. Now, what are we going to do to make sure it
doesnt happen to us? Its a subtle but profound shift in thinking.

High reliability
If you fly domestically in the US, it will strike you just how unnervingly young some of the pilots
and co-pilots seem. But the training they receive is comprehensive, the safety culture they
operate in is pervasive, and the expectations on them to conform to it are rigorous and uniform.
Figure 2: Different methods for deployment depicted
This is the approach pioneered by so-called high-reliability organisations in the airline, nuclear
power and other industries, where mistakes just cannot happen. The likelihood of disaster on a
To illustrate the inspection technique, as well as the deployment challenges a few case studies
plane is very high if you do the wrong things, while on an oil well you can generally get it back
shall be presented. At Innospection SLOFEC in combination with UT spot checks has been
under control unless you do some really fundamental things wrong.
found to be an adaptable testing technology for the various tasks described above. The SLOFEC
technology has been described before [1]. In essence it consists of an eddy current technology
How does our industry compare to the airline industry? Weve done a lot of work over the past
under simultaneous magnetization of the pipe to be inspected. This allows for the inspection of
20 years on personnel safety. Its now statistically safer to work on a drilling rig than on a farm
wall thickness reductions and can be used not only for bare carbon steel pipe, but also for a
or a construction site. But if you factor in well control as a measure, and you create a safety
combination of metals and polymers. The polymer itself, which can be a coating or another
scale of one to four, Id put the airline industry at four and oil and gas at around one or two.
structural part of the pipe, is not inspected, but also does not impede the inspection of the
metallic parts.
consistency, the culture and the expectations.

Case
Studies
For
example,
there are some generally accepted procedures for well control, and there is an
and
understanding.
If you compare the responsibilities of a pilot landing an airplane to those of
Internal
Leg Inspection
The task had been to inspect the inside of a platform leg for corrosion type defects. Access was
well-control
driller
needscm.
theIn
same
level there
of proficiency
and training
only possibleincident,
through suddenly
a hole of the
a size
of 15x35
addition
was an internal
cone and
process
a pilot
needs.
blockingback-up
straight that
access
at the
location of the hole. An internal inspection from the top was not
possible due to various internal objects. The inspection was required from the elevation of the
Various
things setinto
high-reliability
organisations
apart.coverage
They dont
a single
person
to be
hole downwards
the water level.
An inspection
asever
highallow
as possible
was
desired.
the
agent
in aleg
set isofshown
actionsinthat
could
Thesole
access
to the
Figure
3. lead to system failure. They also have global
standards there are certain ways planes are flown whatever country the pilots from.

The road to there

DuPont uses a term, felt leadership, to describe its philosophy of process safety management.
It means that frontline people at DuPont should feel the sincerity, the consistency, and the
commitment of management to safety. How? By the managers being visible in the field, talking
about the issues, demonstrating by their engagement that they really care. Their task is
constantly to keep the culture alive, and to challenge, to pause and ask questions. Are you sure
about this? Whats changed, whats new? They support peer-to-peer challenging, too. Its a
daily, evolving conversation.
The man who recruited me to Chevron many years ago, Carnie Block, got this even before
there was a fancy term for it. When he went to the field, he tried never to have more than one
conversation. If he was there to talk about safety, thats all he talked about. If it was business, it
was business. He didnt want to dilute the purpose of his visit. That made a big impression: it
Figure
3: Thewith
access
forhow
a keyhole
inspection
of asignals.
leg
registered
me
we send
mixed
For Carnie it wasnt just the company line, it
was a true internal value and it didnt change even if they were behind forecast.
The devised inspection tool was required to be sufficiently narrow. It is shown in the right part
of
Figuredeficiency
4.
Process
is rarely the fault of the process. Very few people intentionally make mistakes
In
its
final
configuration
ofthey
a SLOFEC
unit
for corrosion
testing,
a camera
for visual
but they may
not followisa consisted
process, or
may not
know
about it, or,
over time,
process
inspection
and
a
PEC
unit
for
quantitative
wall
thickness
testing.
PEC
stands
for
Pulsed
corner-cutting is reinforced when nothing bad happens right away. This is how processEddy
Current
andpropagates.
is also widely
in inevitable,
the testingbut
of offshore
structures
[2].a culture in which
deficiency
Its used
almost
what combats
this is
somebody else can speak up and say, hang on, thats not what we do, and where the leadership
is constantly asking questions, probing, making sure people are not getting complacent. Only
such a living, holistic system of checks and balances will keep small errors from escalating into
major incidents.
Speaking at DecomWorlds
in Houston, 29
September-1 October, in Houston, Kevin Lacy recently retired from Talisman Energy as Senior
Vice President of Drilling and Completions. After spending 26 years with Chevron, Kevin joined
BP in July 2006, where he became VP for Drilling and Completions in the Gulf of Mexico

Figure 4: Left: The arm to mount the scanner on the hole. The scanner (right) could be lowered
into the leg by the means of a steel rope. The pulley was inside the leg.

The left of Figure 4 shows the device that allowed for mounting the scanner internally near the
hole and also allowed for swiveling the scanner around the internal surface.

Riser with external Monel cladding

The task in this case consisted of the inspection of a riser which was externally clad with a
Monel alloy. Monel is an alloy with high Nickel content. Nevertheless it is not magnetic, but
electrically conductive. It shows excellent resistance against corrosion.

The riser had to be inspected for external corrosion, i.e. metal loss in the interface between
Monel and steel. The particular interest was in the splash zone. The device had to be attached
below a riser clamp, which is shown in the right of Figure 5. ILI in risers is usually possible, if the
corresponding pipeline is piggable. However, the data often shows poor quality, as the speed is
uncontrolled.

Figure 5: Left: The inspection device for a mock-up testing. The red encircled spot shows a SLOFEC device scanning
in the circumference. The right shows the device being deployed from top-side and performing its inspection in the
splash zone.

The left of Figure 5 shows the device being tested. The scanner itself is shown in the red circle.
The cladding had overlapping parts with the overlap welded in the circumferential direction.
The scanning had to be in the circumference, because signals originating from the weld would
have masked defects underneath. Scanning in the axial direction of the riser would have been a
much easier task. The device consists of a lower rotating part and an upper stationary part. Both
parts can be opened to allow for clamping onto the riser.
The SLOFEC technique can be adapted to measure through layers of conductive material, if the
material is not magnetic. In addition cameras observe the scanned area. Workshop verification
tests have shown, that metal loss in the carbon steel riser can indeed be observed in this
manner. In the particular project it was possible to show the absence of defects.
The technology also demonstrates the principal ability to inspect internal CRA lined or cladded
pipe.

Inspection of flexible riser

The issue of inspecting flexible risers is complex and has been discussed before [1]. They are a
good example of uninspectable pipeline, as pigs have been passing through flexible riser often.
The inspection of flexible risers is of utmost importance. A considerable number of flexible
risers are known to have damage in the outer sheath. This will lead to degradation and reduces
the calculated lifetime. The degradation mechanisms usually consist of water ingress, flooded
annulus, and corrosion in the armored

wires and reduced fatigue life time. The deployment method is also of major interest. In the
project shown here the riser had to be inspected near the splash zone, but to water depth at
least to -20m. The scanning is done in the axial direction. Since the scanning needs to cover
the full circumference and the orientation of the device on the riser needs to be defined, the
device can also rotate on the riser. The left of Figure 6 shows Innospections MEC-HUG tool
that uses hydraulic power to run axially and circumferentially on the riser pipe.
The MEC-HUG tool is equipped with buoyancy block on top visible in Figure 6. Once the tool
is submersed, it floats and freely moves in water by the hydraulic motors. The steel rope
remains attached for safety reasons but is no longer required to steer the tool. Encoder wheels
on the tool allow for positioning the device. The right in Figure 6 shows an excerpt of the
inspection report. The typical helical structure of flexible riser pipe is visible. The full circumference is scanned with different tracks. They are later concatenated to yield the full picture. With
a given datum point any position on the riser can be reached and reinspected.

Figure 6: Left: The MEC-HUG tool being attached to the riser. It runs in axial an circumferential orientation. The
inspection is performed while running axially. The data is shown on the right.

Unpiggable Subsea Pipeline

In this project the task was to inspect an unpiggable subsea pipeline. It was deemed possible
that the pipeline suffered from top-of-the-line corrosion. Hence the focus was on the top
position for inspection. The coating consisted of a 3-layer Polyethylene with a thickness of a
few mm. Sections of several meters were to be inspected. A rough cleaning had to be
performed prior to inspection. The inspection tool is a modified MEC-CombiCrawler. It is
seen lying in front of a Work class ROV in the left of Figure 7. Again it is equipped with buoyancy
to ensure no resulting torque is exerted on the tool when running on the pipeline. This allowed
to tool to also run stable in the 11 and 1 oclock position.

Figure 7: Left: the inspection tool (modified MEC-CombiCrawler) lying in front of a work class ROV. Right: Tool
deployed on subsea pipeline scanning over the pipeline.

The right in Figure 7 shows the tool running on the pipeline performing an inspection using
SLOFEC and UT Wall thickness measurements. The tool remains connected with the ROV over
an umbilical. The data is transferred through the ROV in real-time.

Conclusion
There are various reasons why pipelines or other tubular offshore structures are difficult to
inspect. In-line inspection is a matured and widely accepted method to gather integrity related
information. Structures, where only external solutions will yield meaningful results, are of
particular interest, as this constitutes an emerging inspection market.
Compared to standard ILI many of the solutions are still in an early stage of development.
Nevertheless new methods and means of deployment yield important information. Eddy
Current Testing in various configurations in combination with ultrasonic wall thickness measurement has shown to be a promising technology for difficult to pig and to inspect pipes.

Bibliography
[1] K. Reber and A. Boenisch, "Inspection of Flexible Riser Pipe with MEC-FIT," in PPSA Seminar,
Aberdeen, 2011.
[2] P. Couzen and I. Munns, "Pulsed Eddy Current Corrosion Monitoring