Internal corrosion has been one of the primary mechanisms resulting in pipeline failure in oil/gas production. According to Alberta Energy Regulator (AER)'s statistics,[*] of various reasons causing pipeline failures (leaks and ruptures) in Alberta, Canada from 1990 to 2012, there are 54.8% attributing to internal corrosion. Pipeline internal corrosion is a complex process affected by a wide variety of factors, with multiple, interrelated reactions occurring simultaneously. Development of mechanistic model enabling quantitative prediction of internal corrosion rate would contribute to an improved integrity management of pipelines. This talk gives the author's latest progress in this area. Based on investigation of the mechanistic aspects of CO2 corrosion of steel, a model was developed to predict internal corrosion of pipelines under conditions that are relevant to oil/gas production. The model integrates fluid hydrodynamics, mass-transfer process at fluid/scale interface, scale formation process and electrochemical corrosion reactions at the scale/steel interface, with considerations of parametric effects such as fluid flow velocity, CO2 partial pressure, solution pH, temperature, and pipe size. In addition to uniform corrosion, technical challenges in modeling internal pitting corrosion are discussed.

Modeling of internal corrosion of pipelines in oil/gas production

248th National Meeting (2014)

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