Houston, We Have an Office
Driven by demand for CMI in Europe and growing interest worldwide, EMPIT has opened its first U.S. office in Houston, Texas, establishing a direct presence in the heart of North America's energy and pipeline industry. The new location brings EMPIT's non-invasive inspection technology closer to the operators, engineering firms, and integrity teams that manage one of the world's largest pipeline networks.
Houston sits at the center of the U.S. midstream sector, with proximity to Gulf Coast transmission systems, refineries, petrochemical complexes, and the operators responsible for hundreds of thousands of miles of onshore pipeline. For a company specializing in [above-ground pipeline inspection](https://empit.com/services), this location offers immediate access to customers, field sites, and the technical talent needed to support projects throughout Texas, the United States, and North America.
The office adds to EMPIT's existing locations in Berlin (headquarters), Hamburg, Lingen, Innsbruck, and Zug, extending the company's inspection capabilities across the Atlantic and positioning it to serve the North American market directly.
Services Available from the Houston Office
The Houston team delivers EMPIT's full range of non-invasive inspection and integrity services to U.S. operators, with particular focus on the assessment methods most relevant to domestic regulatory and integrity-management programs:
- Geohazard site inspection: Evaluating pipeline segments exposed to ground movement, subsidence, and other terrain-related threats.
- Corrosion assessment through corrosion rate determination: Identifying and characterizing active corrosion to support risk ranking and remediation planning.
- External Corrosion Direct Assessment (ECDA) and Stress Corrosion Cracking Direct Assessment (SCCDA): Supporting operators in implementing integrity management programs in accordance with the NACE/AMPP SP0502 and NACE/AMPP SP0204 standards.
- Pipeline mapping: Providing accurate location and depth-of-cover data for buried assets.
- Inspection of unpiggable pipelines: Assessing segments that cannot accommodate conventional in-line inspection tools.
All of these services are delivered using EMPIT's above-ground, non-invasive inspection method, which requires no excavation, no service interruption, and no pigging.
CMI Technology: Inspection Without Interruption
EMPIT's patented Current Magnetometry Inspection (CMI) technology enables the inspection of buried pipelines entirely from above ground. The system uses multi-frequency current excitation and spectrum analysis of magnetic field measurement to detect and locate active corrosion, coating defects, and stray current interference with high precision. As a non-invasive, above-ground method, CMI complements the indirect inspection step of the NACE/AMPP SP0502 ECDA process, giving operators high-resolution survey data along the pipeline without excavation.
This approach is well suited to North American pipeline operations, where large portions of the buried network run through congested urban areas, environmentally sensitive corridors, and complex industrial facilities such as refineries, chemical plants, and fuel-handling systems. With inspection capabilities covering steel, ductile iron, and grey iron pipelines at significant depths, the Houston hub supports projects that were previously considered unpiggable or otherwise inaccessible.
The Houston office is led by Keng Yap, who heads EMPIT's North American operations and coordinates inspection campaigns and customer relationships across the region.
Work With EMPIT in Houston
EMPIT is building its U.S. team and inviting operators to discover how non-invasive inspection can strengthen their integrity programs.
Contact us, to discuss a project or explore EMPIT's capabilities!