As a part of the Integrity Management System, TgP/COGA has identified the weather and outside forces as main threats that increase the risk of the integrity of its pipelines in jungle and mountains areas. In pipelines with particular characteristics such as pipelines that cross the Andes and the Amazonian jungle, this threat can cause even a greater number of failures than other threats such as corrosion or third party damage (TPD). Given this situation, the TgP’s Pipeline Integrity Management System has made a significant development in the use and management of the information provided by the various techniques of inspections and monitoring of the pipeline and ROW. This article discusses the various techniques and methodologies of monitoring that allows to estimate the exposure of the pipelines to geohazards.
These techniques are, for soil monitoring: topographic surveys (traditional and modern techniques of laser-detection LIDAR), monitoring of stress and displacement of the soil by fiber optics, inclinometers, piezometers and ROW geotechnical inspection (land use, deforestation, etc). Pipeline monitoring: in-line inspections (INS tool) and deformation monitoring (strain gages). The soil/pipeline interaction model, developed by finite elements technique, allows to estimate the pipeline deformation and stress levels correlating the information of the monitoring techniques listed above. All information is supported into a Geographic Information System, which uses APDM as database model, and which allows to integrate information more efficiently with the goal of completing the system risk assessment using a particular risk algorithm developed and adapted to the reality of transportation systems that cross amazonian jungles and the Andes.
By integrating these inspections and monitoring systems as part of Pipeline Integrity Management, based on risk assessments, the operator is able to act in advance to potential critical events, mitigating and/or minimizing the occurrence of failures. In this way the operator is able to optimize efforts to preserve the integrity of the system and in addition minimize personal, environmental and business impact.
