SCM Secures Transits and Penetrations Contract with Maersk Oil

Strategic Corrosion Management (SCM) has secured a prestigious contract with Maersk Oil to deliver a programme of survey and inspection on more than 50assets in the Danish North Sea.

The two-year plus programme will specifically review Transits and Penetrations to assess current and future levels of corrosion on assets in the Danish Underground Consortium (DUC), operated by Maersk Oil on behalf of Shell, Chevron, Maersk Oil and the Danish North Sea Fund.

A team of four specially-trained SCM survey personnel are undertaking the works and managing the data collected using the company’s comprehensive Risk, Integrity, and Strategic Corrosion management (RISCm) corrosion toolset.

In addition, SCM has expanded its in-house technical support team with the addition of further Project Engineers at its Tyneside base.

This contract is the latest in a number of projects to be awarded by Maersk to SCM, which most recently included an extension to an existing agreement to provide External Corrosion Condition Surveys.

The successful relationship between the two companies led to a pilot study of transits and penetrations and the identification of a number of corrosion challenges to high criticality pipework. This was undertaken by Maersk Senior Maintenance Engineer Jonathan D Madden and SCM Managing Director, Ian Cordingley. The pair went on to co-author a well-received technical paper for the Institute of Corrosion.

Based upon the pilot study, Maersk has implemented the three-year Transits and Penetrations project, which is being delivered by SCM utilising the RISCm system.

RISCm has been adopted for DUC by Maersk Oil as the preferred system of External Corrosion Management. With the addition of this latest project SCM is working closely with the company to deliver specialist additions to RISCm to support the survey and monitoring of Transits and Penetrations.

In RISCm, this speciality addition integrates well with the others of Flanges and Bolting, Pipe Supports-Hangers and Springs, Temporary Repairs and Vessels.

 Ian Cordingley, Managing Director of Strategic Corrosion Management, said: “Transits and Penetrations are a high risk aspect of asset integrity control and Maersk is one of the first to implement a ‘root and branch’ investigation and corrosion control programme to address this issue.

“Our pilot project identified the integrity challenges the Transit and Penetration conditions pose to the offshore industry with possibly more than 13 percent of Transits and Penetrations on mature plant at risk of serious hidden corrosion”.

“The foresight shown by Maersk, both in terms of their involvement in the pilot programme and the subsequent two-year project, demonstrates its commitment to maximising productivity from its maintenance programmes and utilising expertise and technology from the supply chain.”

Ian added: “This project has also enabled our business to strengthen its workforce, which is very satisfying as we have experienced consistent growth since we established our North East England and North East Scotland operations.”

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Press Release, March 29, 2013