ACHIEVING AN EQUIVALENT UNDERSTANDING OF PIPELINE INTEGRITY THROUGH DIRECT ASSESSMENT DATA INTEGRATION

摘要

What Direct Assessment (DA) is, and how DA can be applied to effectively assesspipeline integrity within the framework of an operator’s Integrity Management Program(IMP), are hot discussion topics now days. Like any new pipeline industry technologythat has passed quickly through oil and gas companies, industry associations andgovernment agencies, DA has taken on a life of its own.To some integrity managers, DA has already been written off as unverifiable integrityassessment alternative that will not be incorporated into their current operations or IMPplans. Other managers consider DA as a necessity for continued operations and a coreintegrity assessment methodology, which is reflected in their baseline and continuingintegrity assessment plans. As two of the key players in demonstrating DA, we believethat the DA process is the basis for making all informed integrity management decisions.New state and federal pipeline integrity management regulations state that acceptabletechnologies for assessing pipeline integrity include in-line inspection and pressuretesting, with DA considered on a case-by-case basis or within the category of “othertechnology”. None of these technologies individually is fully capable of characterizingall potential threats to pipeline integrity. Therefore, the appropriate technology should beselected after consideration of risk assessment results, the type(s) of anomalies that arelikely to be present, the method’s validity under current conditions, and its practicalfeasibility.There are several on-going gas pipeline industry sponsored initiatives with an objective tovalidate that DA, under certain circumstances, can provide an understanding of the