The year of the PIG?

Pipeline Cleaning Pigs

It would seem that a new era in pigging is unfolding at the present time.

With many pipelines now operating well after their originally planned design lifespan, the use of inspection vehicles to prove their integrity and therefore continue the pipelines safe operational use seems to be on many operators’ agendas.

How to get what you want.

Linked to the inspection process is the need to run more conventional pigging tools (PIGS) in a dedicated cleaning campaign prior to the inspection programme.

With regard to the projects I personally have been involved with, the pig cleaning programmes have provided the required cleanliness levels for the results collected by the inspection tools to show very favourable results with regard to computer models and have provided the required real time information ensuring future operational use.

But for how long?

How long the pipelines can be used is open to debate and will be governed by the commercial viability of the pipelines product, but the one thing that can be seen is that if newly inspected pipelines are integrated within a regular maintenance cleaning programme their long term future will be far better than a pipeline left to its own devices so to speak.

The need to clean!!!

Planned regular cleaning programmes help to eliminate the build up of foreign contaminates within the pipeline and therefore from a commercial point of view keep the pipelines flowing at optimum levels, ensuring maximum efficiency at the lowest costs and from a structural view point, help limit the formation of corrosion and therefore keep the structural integrity of the pipeline.