Tracerco has secured a million-dollar contract in the Gulf of Mexico, under which the company will deploy its pipeline inspection technology, Discovery, across a number of oil and gas platforms in the region.
This new technology will be utilized by three leading U.S. energy companies, all of whom operate different riser pipes on multiple platforms in the Gulf, Tracerco said. The project also comes as part of the first life extension permit granted for these assets.
“ The fact that three of the largest American oil and gas companies have joined forces to do this gives them not only economies of scale but also enables us to get standardization on these risers as we work with these operators to maintain pipeline integrity and extend the lifespan of their assets ,” Jim Bramlett , Tracerco’s Commercial Manager for North America noted.
Discovery is said to be specified by real-time, highly accurate data that can be gathered with a non-intrusive approach, which means that there will not be a need for any downtime.
According to Tracerco, the project is designed to allow owner operators to gain enhanced understanding of a pipeline, its coating process fluid, all whilst being fully operational.
Using subsea CT scanning technology, Discovery is said to provide critical flow assurance and integrity data in real time, without the need for coating removal.
The new technology can be used for both regulatory and pipeline inspections, as well as for life extension projects thanks to the high-resolution tomographic images of the pipe wall contents and thickness, according to Tracerco.
To this day, Discovery has been deployed on more than 100 oil and gas assets across the world, and is gathering more than tens of thousands of scans, which helps the operators to refine and improve the efficiency of existing pipeline models.
For now, this technology is used in the Americas, Australia, Europe and West Africa.