PRODUCTION • PROCESSING • HANDLING
An advanced anti-corrosion coating is being used successfully on two North Sea off shore platforms
n a collaborative eff ort designed to improve vital protection of off shore assets, the Oil & Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) in Aberdeen, UK is successfully conducting trials of an advanced anti-corrosion coating on two North Sea off shore platforms. T e mission of the OGTC, which is jointly funded by the UK, Scottish and Aberdeen governments, is to establish a culture of innovation that will consolidate Aberdeen and North-East Scotland’s position as a global hub for oil and gas technology and innovation. T e challenge, however, is that the
UK’s North Sea is one of the most brutal climates in the world. Often ice cold and windswept, the rigs in the North Sea face a constant corrosive onslaught of waves and salt spray. Traditional coatings simply cannot withstand the environment. T e cost of maintenance on a rig can be up to 100 times as expensive as land-based
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CORROSION I
maintenance because crews and supplies often have to be helicoptered out to the site, so when coatings fail it costs the asset owner enormous amounts of money. After extensive research, OGTC
identifi ed a spray-applied inorganic coating called EonCoat, from the USA- based company of the same name, as a method of delivering long term protection for the off shore assets. T e anti-corrosive coating represents a new category of tough, chemically bonded phosphate ceramics (CBPCs) that can stop corrosion, ease application and reduce off shore platform production downtime even in humid, storm or monsoon-susceptible conditions. OGTC worked with EonCoat’s UK distributor and applicator, SPi Performance Coatings, to implement two trial programmes. With OGTC’s vision and sponsorship, SPi applied EonCoat to a Total E&P platform and a Nexen platform, each of which is located on
COLLABORATE AGAINST EonCoat application complete
the UK continental shelf in the North Sea. Total is a global integrated energy producer and provider, and a leading international oil and gas company, with operations in more than 130 countries. Meanwhile Nexen is an upstream oil and gas company responsibly developing energy resources in the UK North Sea, off shore West Africa, the USA and Western Canada.
TOTAL E&P TRIAL SPi applicators, along with EonCoat material and equipment, were helicoptered to Total’s Elgin ‘A’ Wellhead platform on December 17, 2017. T e coating was applied to areas of the platform’s lower deck that were suff ering from severe corrosion, and a topcoat was added for aesthetics. Surface preparation for the trial was carried out by Muehlhan, a global provider of surface protection and
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