Implementation of a Pipeline Integrity Management System at TIGF (France): The Added Value of the Pipeline Threats and Mitigations Module Available to Purchase

On January 4th 2007 TIGF published the following invitation for tenders: “Development and Provision of a Pipeline Integrity Management System”. The project was awarded to Bureau Veritas (BV), who proposed to meet the requirements of TIGF with the Threats and Mitigations module of the PiMSlider® suite extended with some customized components. The key features of the PiMSlider® suite are: • More than only IT: a real integrity philosophy, • A simple intuitive tool to store, display and update pipeline data, • Intelligent search utilities to locate specific information about the pipeline and its surrounding, • A scalable application, with a potentially unlimited number of users, • Supervision (during and after implementation) by experienced people from the oil and gas industry. This paper first introduces TIGF and the consortium BV – ATP. It explains in a few words the PIMS philosophy captured in the PiMSlider® suite and focuses on the added value of the pipeline Threats and Mitigations module. Using this module allows the integrity analyst to: • Prioritize pipeline segments for integrity surveillance purposes, • Determine most effective corrective actions, • Assess the benefits of corrective actions by means of what-if scenarios, • Produce a qualitative threats assessment for further use in the integrity management plan, • Optimize integrity aspects from a design, maintenance and operational point of view, • Investigate the influence of different design criteria for pipeline segments. To conclude, TIGF presents the benefits of the tool for their Integrity Management department and for planning inspection and for better knowledge of their gas transmission grid.