Brazilian Pigging Technology
brazilianpiggingtechnology
PipeWay is a Brazilian company specializing in pipeline inspection technology and pigging unit manufacture. Starting from a small back room in a Brazilian university, the company has grown to be the leading national pipe inspection company and is also gaining international reputation to boot.
PipeWay Internatinal was formed by an alliance between a Brazilian company called PipeWay Engenharia and an American company, to work together in North America. PipeWay Engenharia is the sole company in the Southern Hemisphere with fully national production, which manufactures and operates tools for O&G pipeline inspection-pigs, which check anomalies such as ovalnesses, crushing and corrosions, contributing to avoid leakages that may cause ecological accidents.
The final entrance in the market happened in 1998, when the group of researchers from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), by using the technology of Petrobras' Research and Development Center (Cenpes), launched in the sector a tool for pipe integrity management. PipeWay was created in a 30m2 room, at Genesis Institute, as an incubated company. Today, PipeWay is rendering services throughout Brazil and almost the whole Americas (Argentine, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela), providing also tools to worldwide partners.
The final entrance in the market happened in 1998, when the group of researchers from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), by using the technology of Petrobras' Research and Development Center (Cenpes), launched in the sector a tool for pipe integrity management. PipeWay was created in a 30m2 room, at Genesis Institute, as an incubated company. Today, PipeWay is rendering services throughout Brazil and almost the whole Americas (Argentine, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela), providing also tools to worldwide partners.
One of its primary inspection units is specialized in magnetic flux leakage. Rare earth neodymium iron boron magnets power the magnetizer of the inspection unit, providing the ultimate strength to meet most pipeline wall thicknesses for the best feature detection and sizing. Special designs can cover extra heavy wall applications.
ILI tool drive section is the sealing unit that pulls the pig through the pipeline. All sizes of the ILI tool can accommodate multiple wall thickness in the same run. It uses longitudinal distance measurement to assure accurate location of anomalies. Magnetic sensors give 3 digital ticks per foot and analog sinusoid quadrature signals to allow for distance interpolation and forward/backward movement discrimination.
ILI tool drive section is the sealing unit that pulls the pig through the pipeline. All sizes of the ILI tool can accommodate multiple wall thickness in the same run. It uses longitudinal distance measurement to assure accurate location of anomalies. Magnetic sensors give 3 digital ticks per foot and analog sinusoid quadrature signals to allow for distance interpolation and forward/backward movement discrimination.
All the tools are articulated for short capsule length to achieve bend radius of 1.5 D. The versatility of adding capsules or removing capsules allows the recording life of the tool to be changed with batteries to meet most pipeline lengths.
Computer hardware and components, flash memories and signal conditioning electronics record the signals from the sensors in full, without any filtering criteria, to allow for best post-run signal analysis and comparison with future runs.
This is a good example of the trend towards university incubated O&G technology companies, which are growing in number and quality in Brazil. The value of these companies to Brazil´s technological development is considerable, as in many other O&G producing countries in South America and Africa, examples such as this are quite rare. Here these companies can count on government and industry incentives since the industry has finally understood the importance of investing in aggregated technology development as a means to increase the countries technological and industrial development, to create new job opportunities and also to attract new local technology development efforts.
Claudio Paschoa
Image courtesy of PipeWay International
Paschoa, Claudio
Claudio Paschoa is Marine Technology Reporter's correspondent in Brazil.
Email: [email protected]
February 2024
