REDUCING 3RD PARTY ACCIDENTS THROUGH SEAMLESS
DEPTH OF COVER (DOC) ASSESSMENTS

CMI IMPROVES PUBLIC AND ASSET SAFETY BY PROVIDING DRONE IDENTIFIED PIPELINE SECTIONS WITH CRITICAL PIPE DEPTH

It is well known that roughly 30% of all pipeline incidents are caused by 3rd party activity. Due to changing landscapes one of our customers experienced this firsthand. After working on the same field for more than 20 years, a farmer ran his plough straight into the pipeline causing a burst which lead to serious safety concerns and major operational downtime. This motivated our client to perform a high precision seamless DOC assessment of their entire pipeline to determine whether there are any other potential high-risk locations that require their attention.

EMPIT’s Current Magnetometry Inspection (CMI) is able to provide seamless DOC data on a 1 cm grid with a maximum specified measurement uncertainty of 20 mm. Our AI based software performs data analysis resulting in highly precise and accurate profile of the pipeline. During this inspection our air-based system revealed several areas of concern where the DOC was as low as 40 cm. To have reassurance of our data quality our customer had performed several feedback digs which revealed that provided results had DOC uncertainty of no more than 10 mm. They then went ahead and used our results as the basis to plan and execute further measures. This ensured the safety of 3rd parties as well as the safety of their pipeline to improve operational continuity.

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PIPELINE:

Gas DN600 Pipeline (1970’s)

 

CHALLENGES:

  1. Pipeline routed through agricultures lands
  2. Changing landscapes
  3. Unaware landowners

 

GOALS:

  1. Ensuring public and asset safety
  2. Reducing 3rd party accidents to minimize operations down time
  3. Identification of any pipeline sections with pipe depth below 80 cm

 

OUTCOME:

  1. Seamless DOC overview with indication of shallow pipeline sections with a measurement grid of 1 cm
  2. Accurate DOC measurements with an achieved measurement error below 10 mm

 

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It’s for a reason that we are amongst Germany’s Top 100 innovators. Because our mission is to overcome these inspection challenges and, together with our clients, continuously improve the safety and reliability of all pipelines.