From the time we get up in the morning until we go to bed at night, it is difficult to find a moment when we have not used energy transported by a pipeline. Gas may heat your home, provide electricity and cook our food. Petroleum products made from oil, power our planes, trains and automobiles. Oil is used to harvest the crops for our food and clothing, and get it to the store. The world consumption of crude oil is estimated to be 99 million barrels per day (15’717 million liters) and 123 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (3’482 trillion liters).
For the most part (90%), these products are moved through a network of buried metallic tubes referred to as pipelines. This infrastructure is strategic to the good functioning of our economies and societies. Any mechanical failure might result into leakages and spillages with significant harm to public health and the environment (toxicity, fire, explosion...).
Although pipelines are the safest way to transport hazardous fluids over long distances, accidents can put human lives in danger and impact the environment. That is why more and more pipelines networks in the world have to comply with strict government regulations: Pipelines must be reliable to provide energy safely for the people and the environment.
It is estimated 65% of the buried pipelines can be inspected through traditional tools, intelligent robots or smart pigs. The other 35% of the network, i.e.1.5 million km of pipelines, equivalent to 37 times the earth circumference, cannot be inspected through robots due to design/operational issues. They are referred to as unpiggable pipelines.
Skipper NDT’s objective is to provide a reliable tool to help operators ensure the safety of their pipeline networks where traditional tools are not applicable.
