Corrosion is an inside job
Pipeline corrosion modelling using
Electronic Corrosion Engineer (ECE™)
By Dr Andrew Simm
Our purpose
We are a global leader in technical, engineering and
project services, generating success for customers,
colleagues and communities.
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Our values
Care
Working safely with integrity,
respecting and valuing each other
and our communities
Commitment
Consistently delivering to all our
stakeholders
Courage
Pushing the boundaries to create
smarter, more sustainable solutions
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Our vision
Partner with agility
Inspire with ingenuity
Create new possibilities…
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Asset Performance Optimisation
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Integrity assurance, management
Corrosion modelling, assessments and mitigation
Materials engineering, welding, fabrication
Shutdown / turnaround management and support
Maintenance optimisation
Reliability, availability and maintainability modelling
Risk based inspection and reliability
Expert witness and due diligence services
Operational
management
solutions
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Operations readiness
Information and data management
Maintenance management consultancy, procedures, strategies
Asset visualisation technology
Integrated maintenance database build
Bespoke training and competency
Technical documentation creation, optimisation, management
Quality surveillance
Vibration,
dynamics
and noise
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Rotating equipment analysis
Piping fatigue and structural dynamics
Field engineering and troubleshooting
Noise management
Structural and piping anti-vibration solutions
Monitoring and reliability services
Customised training
Integrity
management
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Leading materials and corrosion
consultancy
• Corrosion modelling software
• Corrosion assessment studies
• Materials selection studies
• Materials and corrosion audits
• Corrosion management programs
• Corrosion risk assessments
Today’s speaker
Dr Andrew Simm BSc, DPhil, MRSC, MiCorr, CChem, Csci
Integrity management team lead
Wood
• Product owner of ECE software
• 14 years’ experience in corrosion within the oil and gas industry
• Expertise includes corrosion testing, modelling and assessments,
materials selection, risk-based inspection and corrosion management
program development
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Agenda
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Corrosion problems in pipeline and tubing
Corrosion mitigation methods
Overview of ECE 5.5 capabilities
Case study: full lifecycle material selection for a pipeline project
Common modelling mistakes
Design stage stream-based assessments:
working more efficiently with the Excel interface
7. New features and improvements in the ECE 5.6 release (early 2020)
• Polls
• Q&A
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Poll #1
What corrosion modelling tools do you use?
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“Free” spreadsheets
ECE
Another commercially available corrosion model
A proprietary corrosion model that is not commercially available
Pipeline and tubing corrosion in oil and gas
Pipeline and tubing corrosion problems
Two environments to consider:
1. External environment exposed to soil, seawater
or atmosphere
Mitigated by proper external coatings and
cathodic protection systems (buried/subsea)
2. Internal environment exposed to fluids
containing CO2 and H2S
A very complex problem with ‘infinite’ matrix of
interacting parameters unique to each project
CO2
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
H2S/ S
Internal produced-fluid corrosion
A complicated problem with many interacting factors:
Water
chemistry
CO2
Steel
H2S
Temperature
Pipe
diameter
Oil properties
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A presentation by Wood.
Pressure
Flow rates
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Water-cut
Angle / inclination
Managing internal corrosion
Design stage decisions
1. Carbon steel with appropriate corrosion allowance
How to calculate the size of corrosion allowance?
2. Carbon steel and a corrosion inhibitor
How to determine availability and efficiency requirements of the
corrosion inhibitor chemical?
3. Corrosion-resistant alloy (solid or clad)
How to choose the correct alloy for the conditions?
More than one option may be technically acceptable but which option
presents the lowest overall cost for my project?
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
How is each option selected?
1. Engineering “rules of thumb” and experience from similar project
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Risks over-specifying or under-specifying materials
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Expensive and impractical early in the project where
many conditions need to be evaluated
2. Corrosion testing in the laboratory
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Results from the laboratory testing may not be
received for months
3. Corrosion modelling
Source: Element Materials Technology
 Cheap, well-established and allows quick evaluation of large matrix of
conditions
 Can be used to reduce the scope of corrosion testing programs
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
The Electronic Corrosion Engineer (ECE™)
Functionality and toolset
Electronic Corrosion Engineer (ECE™)
Quantitative estimation of corrosion
rates and selection of materials
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Delivers realistic corrosion rates
calibrated to real field data with
reliable materials selection rules
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ECE 5.6
®
Electronic Corrosion Engineer®
Continuously improved model,
since 1999
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Technical support by corrosion
engineers ensures your model is set
up correctly, specific to your
problems
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Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
The worlds most trusted
oil and gas corrosion model
Scope of ECE
Software tool to aid material selection for two key capital expenditure items:
production tubing and flowlines
• Flowlines
Mainly horizontal flow: flowlines or pipelines
and process piping
• Professional Edition (single user)
• Enterprise Edition (multiple users
on a network)
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A presentation by Wood.
• Tubing
Downhole production tubing, vertical and
deviated (angled) tubing
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
ECE modules (for both flowlines and tubing)
Corrosion predictor
Analysis of the potential corrosion rate of carbon steel
Failure risk evaluation of carbon steel, based on estimated corrosion rate and given tubing/flowline wall thickness
CRA (corrosion resistant alloy) evaluation
Considers the actual alloy classes used for pipe or OCTG
Considers localised and general corrosion as well as cracking
Lifecycle cost calculation
Lifecycle cost (LCC) evaluation for CRA compared to carbon steel, and considering use of inhibitors
CRA manufacturer finder
Check possible sources of the selected CRA to ensure it is available in the required dimensions
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
ECE global users
Major oil and gas operating companies
– Project feasibility studies
– Operational corrosion problems
Engineering contractors
– Front-end engineering and detailed
design of pipelines and facilities
Materials suppliers
– Recommend technically correct and
cost-effective product to clients
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
ECE customers on every continent
Poll #2
What do you use corrosion modelling for?
o Materials selection during the design stage
o Operational requirements, eg, investigating the impact of changing
operating conditions or predicting corrosion losses at locations that are
difficult to inspect
o Other (please comment)
o Not applicable
Pipeline material selection example
Corrosion case study: find the lowest lifecycle cost material selection
for a pipeline
How to estimate the corrosion rate for carbon steel?
Three-phase
wellfluids
Watersaturated gas
10 MMSCFD Gas
5 mol % CO2
H&MB indicates zero
liquids and no Chloride
10 bara / 50oC
Phases are in
equilibrium at
separator
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A presentation by Wood.
Liquid only
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
15000 Sm3/d liquids 67%
water cut
100 bara
0.016 mol% CO2
151650 ppm Cl150 ppm bicarbonate
API 40 Oil
Top six corrosion modelling mistakes
Using the wrong CO2 and H2S values
Incorrect internal diameter
Getting pumps wrong
Wrong flowrate units entered: m = thousand, mm = million
in oil industry usage; but often different outside the oil industry
Absolute pressure vs gauge pressure
Flow rates at standard vs absolute conditions
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
ECE flowline corrosion predictor
Without corrosion inhibitor
1.19 mm / year
With corrosion inhibitor
0.08 mm / year
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Carbon steel selection results
Uninhibited corrosion rate of 1.19 mm/yr would not normally be considered
acceptable (except for a very short design life)
Inhibited corrosion rate of 0.08 mm/yr is acceptable with a small corrosion
allowance for a design life of 20-30 years but would incur increased OPEX
costs of corrosion inhibition
Should a corrosion resistant alloy (CRA)
cladding be considered?
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Selection of corrosion resistant alloys (CRAs)
CRAs: generally immune to wall thinning and localised pitting corrosion in
oxygen-free production conditions
But susceptible to failure by cracking in sour environments
Selection based upon proven service limits for each grade of CRA where
cracking is not expected to occur
How do we identify which alloys are acceptable for our conditions?
– ppH2S, ppCO2, Chloride, Temperature and pH must be evaluated
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
ECE CRA evaluation tool
In the absence of H2S,
all cladding options are
viable.
Both ISO 15156-3 sour
service and ECE’s own
rules are provided.
Might future
conditions be sour?
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Making an informed decision based on cost
Both options are supported by ECE results:
• Carbon steel with corrosion inhibitor injection
• CRA cladding
How do we evaluate the total lifecycle costs of these options, including the
increased OPEX costs of corrosion inhibitor injection?
Use lifecycle cost analyses to compare the options
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Poll #3
Do you typically use lifecycle cost analysis to compare material selection
decisions?
o Yes
o No
o Not applicable
Lifecycle cost analysis
Provides net present value (NPV) – a standard accounting technique
Evaluates lifecycle costs of corrosion mitigation options
Evaluates OPEX and CAPEX costs of procurement decisions over a project
lifecycle
Details relative costs of material selection decisions
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
ECE lifecycle calculator
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Material selection results
Carbon steel without a corrosion inhibitor: not acceptable
Carbon steel with corrosion inhibitor: lowest CAPEX costs
Ongoing corrosion inhibitor OPEX costs
 CRA is the lower-cost option by year 4
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Considering full lifecycle costs of a 30-year design life, CRA clad pipeline
has lowest overall costs for this example
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Design stage stream-based assessments
Reduce analysis time using the Excel-based interfaces for the
flowline model and the CRA tool
Conducting multiple calculations
Typical FEED study may involve 40 to 50 locations
Requires both corrosion modelling for carbon steel and CRA evaluation
against ISO 15156 sour service rules
H&MB dataset frequently contains 10 design cases of operating conditions to
review
Can quickly become matrix of hundreds of corrosion calculations and CRA
evaluations
How can this be conducted quickly, accurately and efficiently?
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Use the ECE bulk upload interface for corrosion calculations and
CRA evaluations
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Using ECE to make multiple calculations
Click the Excel icon to open
the bulk upload interface in
the flowline tool
Download the Excel import
template to a convenient
location
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Corrosion model bulk upload template
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Performs up to 20 calculations
Pre-set key input parameters
Calculations performed on a
single point only
Suited to dealing with multiple
H&MB stream datasets
Sheet is read back into ECE,
and results saved back into the
spreadsheet
CRA tool bulk upload template
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Performs up to 20 calculations
Suited to dealing with multiple
H&MB stream datasets
Sheet is read back into ECE,
and results saved back into the
spreadsheet
Summary: Excel-based interface
ECE’s bulk upload tool uses a standardised Excel import template
Template allows for:
– Consistent data entry
– Auditing and recordkeeping of input dataset
– Fast evaluation of multiple calculations
Tool available in flowline corrosion predictor and flowline and tubing CRA
evaluators
Can evaluate multiple pipelines and design cases simultaneously
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Future developments in ECE
ECE model development
Incremental updates are released annually
Upgrades are free for all current licence holders
New ECE 5.6 is scheduled for Q1 2020
New features are based on user feedback
We welcome suggestions!
 Email your feedback to ece@woodplc.com
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
New features under development for ECE 5.6
Flowline sections tool
Shear stress calculator
Expansion of CRA selection tool to include more alloys
User notification of active modelling factors (oil wetting, H2S, scaling, etc)
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Flowline sections tool
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Breaks a flowline down into multiple
user-defined sections
Each section may define:
– Location along pipe
– Elevation
– Heat transfer factor
– Ambient temperature
Flowline sections tool
Allows more accurate representation of local temperature and flow
conditions than a straight line inlet to outlet model
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Flowline sections tool
Results in a more detailed prediction of water condensation and
potential corrosivity along a pipeline
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Flowline sections tool
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Available now to all existing ECE licence holders
Contact the ECE helpdesk to obtain an activation code (or check the box
in the survey after this webinar), no new installation is required
Sections tab will be activated
A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
Conclusions
 Predicting internal corrosion is complicated due to many interacting factors
 Corrosion modelling is a cost-effective and well-established method
to predict corrosion rates and prevent corrosion problems
 A lifecycle cost analysis can evaluate the total costs of corrosion mitigation
and material selection decisions
 ECE can help you reduce analysis time and increase accuracy
 ECE is continuously being improved – based on your feedback
 ECE 5.6 release in 2020, contact us to get early access to some new features
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
How to contact ECE sales and support
 ece@woodplc.com
 +44 (0) 1244 336386
Andy Simm (Chester, UK)
andy.simm@woodplc.com
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar
 woodplc.com/ece
Get started with ECE
woodplc.com/ece
• Download a free seven-day trial version
• Request a quotation
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A presentation by Wood.
Corrosion is an inside job – ECE webinar