Effective pipeline integrity management is essential for ensuring operational safety and minimizing ongoing maintenance costs. Pipelines can be subject to multiple active threats simultaneously resulting in complex metal loss morphologies which can challenge in-line inspection (ILI) technologies and increase uncertainty. Significant sizing uncertainties can reduce the accuracy of growth rate calculations and in turn, result in unnecessary or an unmanageable number of investigations. 

This paper describes how a pipeline operator has used repeat external UT scanning data alongside advanced software at various locations along a 500 km pipeline to evaluate ILI sizing error and localized internal growth rate predictions to reduce uncertainty, evaluate risk and reduce unnecessary future excavations.