Environmental Cracking Assessment Challenges

Most of Saudi Aramco’s gas processing plants process both the associated gas received from oil wells and non-associated gas (Khuff gas) received from gas wells.  Both of these gas streams are crucial to meet the growing domestic gas demand and as well as of great significance for future mode of operation. The associated gas received from oil wells utilizes mostly carbon steel as the predominant metallurgy. On the other hand, the metallurgy used for handling khuff gas stream includes carbon steel with either chemical treatment or internal lining and stainless steel, depending on the operating envelope.

This paper discusses the performance of these materials under different operating envelop and the integrity concerns due to environmental cracking. Moreover, this paper will also focus on the challenges associated in quantifying the magnitude of impact with the conventional nondestructive Examination (NDE) techniques, on going efforts to manage the concerns by deploying advanced NDE technologies and the options pursued to restore the integrity of these systems to ensure safe and reliable operations.