Inspection Challenges: Pigs Versus Pipes

As the size of the international pipeline network grows, and systems age (by the year 2000, over 50% of US gas transmission pipelines will be over 40 years old), and as environmental pressures increase, the demand for inspection is ever more apparent. Pipeline operations’ experience has revealed many “new” defects and “new” inspection problems, many of which have challenged in-line inspection technology and stimulated further developments. This paper describes what pipeline inspection needs to find, the available technology and some examples of the inspection challenges.