October 2014, Vol. 241, No. 10

Features

Inspecting And Protecting Buried Piping In Presence Of Electrical Grounding

Many pipeline facilities including compressor stations, regulator stations and pump stations/tank farm terminals have thousands of feet of buried pipe that are not readily accessible for direct inspection. The presence of buried electrical grounding systems that may incorporate copper cables and rods or galvanized grounding elements pose challenges to achieving adequate corrosion control and the assessment of buried piping. As a result, the traditional indirect, over-the-line inspection practices developed for the oil and gas transmission and distribution pipelines have not always been successfully applied for station/plant environments. To address these challenges a collaborat