CHALLENGING PIPELINE LOCATION ASSESSMENT REVEALED MAJOR LAYOUT FLAWS BY AUTONOMOUSLY LOCATING IT’S ASBUILT ABSOLUTE POSITION

A client of ours had just purchased a buried pipeline from a neighboring company in a pipeline corridor between several tank farms and government owned jetties. Pipeline regulations in the corridor require operators to take measures to mitigate any consequences of possible pipeline failures that could affect the High Consequence Area (HCA).

To properly operate this aging asset, our client needed to confirm the as-built layout. EMPIT’s Current Magnetometry Inspection (CMI), is an innovative method that delivered a fast and hassle-free mapping verification. Our AI based software enabled the system to locate the pipeline without any bias from the existing documentation, demonstrating its true layout. This assessment revealed a considerable offset from the original plans as well as a serious inconsistency leading the pipeline through an overgrown area. Heavy vegetation poses a serious threat to its integrity as there are even trees growing overtop the line.

Upon verification our client confirmed that our absolute pipeline positioning results were highly accurate and precise. Despite experiencing interference from many parallel pipelines, our results did not exceed CMI’s specified measurement uncertainty of 40 mm for absolute pipeline positioning. EMPIT’s pipeline digitalization service provided the operator with seamless 3D mapping data consisting of pipelines geocoordinates on a 1 cm measurement grid. Finally, the updated data was implemented into our client‘s Geographic Information System (GIS), mitigating any risk of incorrect documentation in the HCA.