Risk Based Inspection Data Integration for Assessing Microbiologically Influenced Corrosion in the Oil and Gas Industry

Microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) in the oil and gas sector is a degradation process due to microbiological activity trigged when water accumulates on the metal surface of pipelines and facilities. Risk based inspection (RBI) methods aim to determine the susceptibility of the degradation mechanisms towards a component by systematically evaluating their key influencing parameters. The objective of this study is, by coupling RBI methodology to MIC, to showcase a new model which predicts MIC susceptibility by integrating its most influential parameters into a scoring system for oil and gas piping circuits and facilities. Although many similar efforts have been developed, none so far have considered the chemical, physical, operational and metallurgical aspects in conjunction with the microbiological role by including newer genomics-based tools to characterize microbiological activity, diversity and abundance as the integration framework in this study.