Quantification of microbiologically influenced corrosion in injection water pipelines

Rikke Markfoged, Uffe Sognstrup Thomsen, Raymond Lam Choong Meng

Research output: Contribution to book/anthology/report/proceedingArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Pipelines for transferring pressurized seawater constitute a significant part of the network for enhancing oil recovery in many offshore oilfields. To maintain the integrity of the system it is important to mitigate corrosion in the pipeline, or consequently corrosion may cause the operational pressure to be lowered or, in a worst-case scenario, a pipeline failure. Water treatment is essential to mitigate corrosion, although the potential for microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) in injection water pipelines is assumed to be lower compared to oil or multiphase pipelines where nutrients are abundant and a higher temperature facilitates microbiological growth. Presence and activity of MIC-causing microorganisms were investigated in a 16" diameter and 9.6 km long injection water pipeline from the platforms Dan FF to Halfdan A and further to Halfdan B. Nitrate was added to the water and sampling of pigging debris from the pipeline showed that both sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB), nitrate-utilizing bacteria, and methanogens were present in significant numbers of 105-106 cells/g. Enrichment cultures of SRB showed that exponential growth occurred within 22 hours at 20 °C. The metabolic parameters will be implemented in a model to quantify more accurate determination of the MIC risk in injection water pipelines.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCorrosion Conference and Expo 2017
Number of pages10
PublisherNACE International
Publication dateMar 2017
Pages3676-3685
Article numberNACE-2017-9343
ISBN (Electronic)9781510840348
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2017
Externally publishedYes
EventCORROSION 2017 - New Orleans, United States
Duration: 26 Mar 201730 Mar 2017

Conference

ConferenceCORROSION 2017
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNew Orleans
Period26/03/201730/03/2017

Keywords

  • Cell specific activity
  • Danish sector of the north sea
  • MIC risk management
  • Methanogens
  • Microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC)
  • Mitigation
  • Nitrate injection
  • Pipelines
  • Reverse transcriptase qPCR (RT-qPCR)
  • Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB)
  • qPCR

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