Representative Leadership Experience: Large-Scale Pipeline Direct Assessment and LRUT Integrity Program

This case study represents prior leadership and program management experience of a current key member of TES Canada's leadership team, gained during an earlier international role. The original project was not executed by TES Canada. Client, country, pipeline, field, and station names have been fully anonymized. The experience and methodology now inform TES Canada's pipeline integrity and direct assessment capability.

A major oil and gas operator managed an extensive network of aging aboveground and buried pipelines carrying gas, NGL, liquid petroleum, feed, process, and export streams. The combined portfolio covered approximately 3,700 km of pipeline infrastructure. Many lines were considered non-piggable or impractical to inspect using conventional inline inspection tools due to diameter transitions, valve configurations, flow constraints, or access limitations.

The operator required a defensible, integrated integrity assessment approach that could identify high-risk pipeline sections, validate external and internal corrosion threats, assess SCC susceptibility, prioritize field examination locations, and develop a structured long-term integrity management strategy — all without relying on inline inspection as the primary tool.

The fundamental technical challenge was building a defensible pipeline integrity basis across approximately 3,700 km of mixed-service pipelines where conventional inline inspection was not available as a primary method. This required integrating multiple direct assessment methodologies — each with its own data requirements, field logistics, and assessment logic — into a coherent program management framework.

The pipeline network spanned gas, NGL, liquid petroleum, and process service streams, each with distinct internal corrosion mechanisms, flow regime characteristics, and direct assessment methodology requirements. ECDA, ICDA for dry gas pipelines, LP-ICDA for liquid petroleum pipelines, and ESCCDA for stress corrosion cracking susceptibility zones each required separate pre-assessment, indirect inspection, and direct examination frameworks — managed as parallel but integrated workstreams within the same program.

The scale of approximately 3,700 km across multiple pipeline services and physical configurations created a logistics and data management challenge that exceeded what a single direct assessment methodology could address. Program-level integration was required to maintain methodological consistency while accommodating the distinct requirements of each pipeline service type.

Many pipelines in the portfolio had limited or inconsistent historical data — incomplete construction records, partial cathodic protection survey histories, and gap-laden inspection archives. Pre-assessment data collection and gap-filling was a significant engineering workload before any direct assessment methodology could be formally initiated.

SCC susceptibility assessment across the network required integration of pipe-to-soil potential data, coating system type and condition, operating stress levels, temperature profiles, and electrolyte chemistry — a multi-variable assessment that required experienced corrosion and pipeline integrity engineering judgement, not just software-driven screening.

LRUT application to aboveground pipeline sections required selection of appropriate guided wave tool configurations, frequency selection for specific pipe sizes and coatings, interpretation of guided wave indications in complex geometries, and integration of LRUT screening results with the broader direct assessment prioritization framework.

The program enabled the operator to move from fragmented inspection activities toward a structured, risk-based, evidence-driven pipeline integrity management process for approximately 3,700 km of mixed-service pipeline infrastructure. Risk-ranked pipeline sections and inspection priorities were delivered, replacing the previous ad-hoc approach with a defensible, standards-aligned integrity basis.

Direct assessment regions were defined, indirect inspection surveys were completed, and LRUT screening identified anomaly locations requiring targeted direct examination — significantly extending inspection coverage beyond what conventional point-measurement techniques could achieve within the available field time and budget. Remaining strength and FFS calculations were completed for detected damage conditions, providing the operator with repair prioritization and a technical basis for continued operation decisions.

Reassessment intervals, mitigation priorities, and long-term integrity management recommendations were produced for the full portfolio. The program provided a repeatable framework that the operator could maintain and update as new inspection data became available, establishing a sustainable integrity management process rather than a one-time inspection event.