Anyone who spends any appreciable amount of time in the southern U.S. likely won't use the expression "bring on the heat" during the hottest months of the year.
Nevertheless, organizers did not shy away from the phrase as the theme of the 2021 NACE International Bring on the Heat® Conference held recently in Pasadena, Texas.
Focusing on lessons learned, Carlos Fernandes-Lopez, non-metallics discipline technology lead for ExxonMobil, said his organization employs "different levels of interactions" to take advantage of this valuable knowledge. He explained that lessons learned are collected from employees' projects and findings in the field.
"Everything is collected in internal documents that are used in our coatings and insulation," Fernandes-Lopez said during the owners panel.
Joshua Owens, senior engineer of corrosion prevention technical services for Enterprise Products, said that while Enterprise does not currently have "a specific, named program" that maintains lessons learned, the lessons are by no means lost.
"We do frequently meet with our different groups and go over lessons learned issues and [apply] those to our standard specifications," Owens said.
Joining Fernandes-Lopez and Owens on the panel, Juan Valencia, coatings and insulation quality assurance representative for Covestro, said his company's approach to lessons learned is similar to Enterprise's.
"We talk about previous projects and what could have been done differently, what the results were, what happened that was specifically dangerous, and what the failures of the past were and how to mitigate them. It's always good to consider them," Valencia said.
Repairs and right-of-way challenges
Howard Lavender, insulation and fireproofing subject matter expert for Dow, noted that different reasons beyond visual inspections help Dow recognize when it is necessary to make equipment repairs.
"Of course, it depends on how well [equipment is] being maintained. Spills obviously don't help; we've had some cases where some spills have happened," he said.
Lavender also cited turnarounds as a trigger for repairs.
"Obviously, there's a lot of interaction with a lot of people and equipment moving around [during turnarounds], so sometimes superficial damage is done, and we'll have some repairs there," he said. Lavender explained that a lot of the systems are still fairly new, so maintaining the top coats has resulted in no major issues.
While proper corrosion insulation is vitally important to buried pipeline-in-corridor systems, Owens said the biggest and newest challenges are related to access to right-of-way issues.
"We're having to cram more pipelines and powerlines into these corridors, and it becomes more litigious and difficult to purchase right-of-way," Owens said. "There are a lot of interference issues, obviously, when you're talking about new pipelines.
"They didn't produce a lot of challenges with design. They used to give you up to a year after you built a pipeline to come in and do the proper testing, buildup and design, and then build a proper corrosion prevention (CP) system based on field data.
"What the industry is finding now is that if companies wait a year, with all the currents that are in the ground and all the powerlines, you could have issues [develop] a lot faster than in a few months. The challenge when coming in as a contractor is trying to figure out how to design a CP system for the pipeline right away so you can finalize and install it while we're building [the pipeline]."
Owens then stressed the importance of closely monitoring the system in the future, although he admitted that it can also be a challenge.
"For example, leaders would do well to consider how they can interrupt a segment of pipeline when you have to interrupt 30, 40 or 50 rectifiers and still see current coming on to the line," he said.
