Technology
Pigging What, Why, and How
Pipeline pigs are devices that are inserted into and travel throughout the length of a pipeline
driven by a product flow. They were originally developed to remove deposits which could
obstruct or retard flow through a pipeline. Today pigs are used during all phases in the life of
a pipeline for many different reasons. This article, gives a rundown of the types of pigs and
the ways in which they aid pipeline maintenance.
pig is a device inserted into a pipeline which
travels freely through it, driven by the product
flow to do a specific task within the pipeline.
Pigs have come a long way since being in the
form of a whole lot of leather sheets stuck together on a
steel body.
There are two main hypotheses for why the process is
called pipeline pigging, although neither have been
proved. One theory is that pig stands for Pipeline Intervention Gadget. The other states that a leather-bound pig
was being sent through the pipeline, and while it passed,
the leather squeaked against the sides of the pipe, sounding
like a squealing pig.
While buildup in a pipeline can cause transmittal slows
or even plugging of the pipeline, cracks or flaws in the line
can be disastrous. A form of flow assurance for oil and gas
pipelines and flowlines, pipeline pigging ensures the line is
running smoothly.
The maintenance tool, pipeline pigs are introduced into
the line via a pig trap, which includes a launcher and
receiver. Without interrupting flow, the pig is then forced
through it by product flow, or it can be towed by another
device or cable. Usually cylindrical or spherical, pigs
sweep the line by scraping the sides of the pipeline and
pushing debris ahead. As the travel along the pipeline,
there are a number functions the pig can perform, from
clearing the line to inspecting the interior.
When designing a pipeline pigging tool for a specific
operation it is essential that, as a minimum, the following
parameters of the pipeline are known:
Maximum and minimum pipeline internal diameter
Minimum bend radii
Maximum bore of branch connections
Operational parameters
30
APR-JUN 2011
Pig launching / Pig receiving facilities (if any)
Pipeline medium
Pigging propellant
Service conditions (i.e. flowrates, maximum and minimum operational temperature
Additional information will aid in the design process
although non related data or data with spurious links to the
operation can sometimes detract from the actual pigging
requirements.
However it has to be said that too much information is
better than too little as the lack of information can result in
a higher probability of the pigging tool being inefficient and
not fulfilling the operational expectations.
With the above information it is possible to design a
pipeline pigging tool that will meet both the clients operational requirements and comply with the manufacturers inhouse design criteria. It will also ensure that the pigging
tool is fit for purpose both operationally and fulfil the
commercial requirements of the client.
Types of Pipeline Pigs
Although first used simply to clear the line, the purpose
of pipeline pigging has evolved with the development of
technologies. Utility pigs are inserted into the pipeline to
remove unwanted materials, such as wax, from the line.
Inline inspection pigs can also be used to examine the
pipeline from the inside, and specialty pigs are used to plug
the line or isolate certain areas of the line. Lastly, gel pigs
are a liquid chemical pigging system.
Utility Pigs
Similar to cleaning your plumbing line, utility pigs are
used to clean the pipeline of debris or seal the line. Debris
can accumulate during construction, and the pipeline is
Visit our websites at [Link]
pigged before production commences. Also, debris can
build up on the pipeline, and the utility pig is used to scrape
it away. Additionally, sealing pigs are used to remove
liquids from the pipeline, as well as serve as an interface
between two different products within a pipeline. Types of
utility pigs include mandrel pigs, foam pigs, solid cast pigs
and spherical pigs.
Cleaning Pigs, which are used to remove solid or semisolid deposits or debris from the pipeline.
Sealing Pigs, which are used to provide a good seal in
order to either sweep liquids from the line, or provide
an interface between two dissimilar products within
the pipeline.
Within these two groups, a further subdivision can be
made to differentiate among the various types or forms
of pigs:
Mandrel pigs, which have a central body tube, or
mandrel, and various components which can be assembled onto the mandrel to configure a pig for a
specific duty
Foam pigs, which are molded from polyurethane foam
with various configurations of solid polyurethane strips
and/or abrasive materials permanently bonded to them
Solid cast pigs, which are moulded in one piece,
usually from polyurethane
Spherical pigs or spheres, which are of either a solid
composition or inflated to their optimum diameter
with glycol and/or water
changed out while the pipeline remains at pressure. This
can be done by setting two plugs either side of the valve.
Work can then proceed on removing the existing valve and
installing the new one. In complex systems, this can allow
production to continue while maintenance work proceeds
at a platform for example.
The plugs can withstand pressures up to 200 bars typically. The plug works by gripping into the line pipe and
then having a separate sealing system. Lower pressure
techniques include High Friction pigs, which provide a
barrier for depressurised systems.
Gel Pigs
A combination of gelled liquids, gel pigs can be used
in conjunction with conventional pigs or by themselves.
Most pipeline gels are water-based, but a range of chemicals, solvents, and even acids can be gelled. Some chemicals can be gelled as the bulk liquid and others only diluted
in a carrier. Gelled diesel is commonly used as a carrier of
corrosion inhibitor in gas lines. Pumped through the pipeline, there are a number of uses for gel pigs, including
product separation, debris removal, hydrotesting,
dewatering and condensate removal, as well as removing
a stuck pig.
Inspection Pigs
Inspection pigs, also referred to as in-line inspection pigs
or smart pigs, gather information about the pipeline from
within. The type of information gathered by smart pigs
includes the pipeline diameter, curvature, bends, temperature and pressure, as well as corrosion or metal loss.
Inspection pigs utilize two methods to gather information
about the interior condition of the pipeline: magnetic flux
leakage (MFL) and ultrasonics (UT). MFL inspects the
pipeline by sending magnetic flux into the walls of the pipe,
detecting leakage, corrosion, or flaws in the pipeline.
Ultrasonic inspection directly measures the thickness of
the pipe wall by using ultrasonic sounds to measure the
amount of time it takes an echo to return to the sensor.
Specialty Pigs
Specialty pigs, such as plugs, are used to isolate a section
of the pipeline for maintenance work to be performed. The
pig plug keeps the pipeline pressure in the line by stopping
up the pipeline on either side of where the remedial work
is being done. A plug is a specialist pig that can be used to
isolate a section of pipeline at pressure while some remedial work is undertaken. For example, a valve can be
APR-JUN 2011
31
The principle pipeline applications for gel pigs are as
follows:
Product separation
Debris removal
Line filling/hydrotesting
Dewatering and drying
Condensate removal from gas lines
Inhibitor and biocide laydown
Special chemical treatment
Removal of stuck pigs
Specially formulated gels have also been used to seal
valves during hydrostatic testing. Gels have been developed with a controlled gellation time and a controlled
viscosity for temporary pipeline isolation purposes.
As a liquid, although highly viscous, the gel can be
pumped through any line which will accept liquids. Gel
pigs can be used alone (in liquid lines), in place of
batching pigs, or in conjunction with various types of
conventional pigs. When used with conventional pigs,
gelled pigs can improve overall performance while
almost eliminating the risk of sticking a pig.
Gel pigs do not wear out in service like conventional
pigs. They can, however, be susceptible to dilution and
gas cutting. Care must be taken, therefore, when designing a pig train that incorporates gel pigs to minimize fluid
bypass of the pigs, and to place a conventional pig at the
back of the train when displacing with gas.
Because there now exist multi-diameter pipelines,
dual and multi-diameter pigs have been developed, as
well.
The Need to Pig
At the present time pipeline systems are the most
efficient method for the bulk transportation of both
liquids and gases.
However to maintain a pipelines efficiency the following two basic rules need to be followed.
1. The pipeline needs to run continuously.
2. Pipeline throughput must be obtained at both the
lowest capital investment and lowest operational
cost.
To maintain the two basic rules a pipeline should be
pigged on a regular basis using one or more types of
pipeline pigging tool, depending upon the operational
parameters.
The running of pipeline pigging tools helps to maintain the two basic rules as follows:
Removes any harmful media.
Removes liquid and solid debris.
Prevents build up of flow restrictions.
Prevents the need for long term, costly shutdown
periods.
32
APR-JUN 2011
Regular pipeline pigging operations should form
part of a pre-determined maintenance plan to be
carried out at set time intervals and culminating in a
inspection programme utilising an inline inspection
tool that with provide definitive wall thickness measurement data.
During the construction of the line, pigs can be used
to remove debris that accumulates. Testing the pipeline
involves hydro-testing and pigs are used to fill the line
with water and subsequently to dewater the line after the
successful test. During operation, pigs can be used to
remove liquid hold-up in the line, clean wax off the pipe
wall or apply corrosion inhibitors for example. They can
work in conjunction with chemicals to clean pipeline
from various build-ups.
Inspection pigs are used to assess the remaining wall
thickness and extent of corrosion in the line, thus providing timely information for the operator regarding the
safety and operability of the line. Pigs, or plugs, can be
used to isolate the pipeline during a repair.
Pigging frequency depends largely on the contents of
the pipeline. Some sales gas pipelines for example are
normally never pigged. This is since there is little by way
of liquid to remove or debris / corrosion products in the
line. On the other hand, production oil lines can suffer
from wax deposition, which must be managed in order
to allow production to continue.
It is difficult to give general guidance on this, as the
pigging frequency must be set for each specific pipeline.
The general advice would be that a pig is a valuable flow
assurance tool and a decision should be reached with
the operator on the frequency of pigging based on the
flow assurance analysis of the line and in conjunction
with the pigging specialists. Likewise, inspection intervals should be based on discussions between integrity
management and the pig vendors.
The main inspection methods that are used are MFL
(Magnetic Flux Leakage) and UT (Ultrasonics). MFL is an
inferred method where a strong magnetic flux is induced
into the pipeline wall. Sensors then pick up any leakage
of this flux and the extent of this leakage indicates a flaw
in the pipe wall. For instance, internal material loss in
the line will cause flux leakage that will be picked up by
the sensors. Defect libraries are built up to distinguish
one defect from another.
Ultrasonic inspection is a direct measurement of the
thickness of the pipe wall. A transducer emits a pulse of
ultrasonic sound that travels at a known speed. The
time taken for the echo to return to the sensor is a
measurement of the thickness of the pipe wall. The
technique needs a liquid through which the pulse can
travel. The presence of any gas will affect the output.
Visit our websites at [Link]
Offshore VS. Onshore
Offshore pipelines are of thicker wall than onshoresometimes up to 35mm thick. Offshore pipelines can have
greater operating pressures, particularly the deepwater
pipelines offshore Angola, Brazil or Gulf of Mexico. Maximum operating pressures onshore can be 100barg but
offshore can be 300barg.
Flowrates of products both onshore and offshore are the
same dependent upon the type of pipeline or its position
with regard to transporting product either between offshore
platforms or from platform to shore.
Offshore pipelines tend to be protected by a concrete
outer coating and sacrificial anodes fitted to the pipeline
every 100 metres so the outside of offshore pipelines tend
not to suffer corrosion but may get damaged by sea bed
movement or anchors from ships.
Inspection of offshore pipelines tends to look for internal
problems. The most favoured inspection methods are
either ultrasonic or magnetic flux inspection.
Ultrasonic can inspect very thick wall pipe but magnetic
flux is limited because of how strong the magnets need to
be to get enough magnetism in the wall of the pipe to
enable good results to be obtained. Sometimes some
pipelines can only be inspected using ultrasonic techniques because of the wall thickness.
Generally running pigs in offshore pipelines is very
similar to running in onshore lines, after the wall thickness and higher pressures are taken in to consideration.
One very important thing to realise with offshore inspection is that the pig must not get stuck in the pipeline as
retrieving it will be much more expensive than from an
onshore pipeline.
For economic reasons, a number of dual diameter pipelines have been designed and built in recent years. An
existing riser or J-tube at a platform may require that there
is a difference between the pipeline and the riser diameters.
Tying a line into an existing pipeline may result in a change
in diameter from one to the next. Dual and Multi-diameter
pigs have had to be designed and tested to allow such
systems to be pigged.
These include pre-commissioning pigs for dewatering
the lines; operational pigs to allow liquid hold-up to be
removed from gas lines and inspection pigs to provide
information on the line. Typical examples of dual diameter
lines include a 10 x 8 line, a 20 x 16 and a multidiameter line 11 x 12 x 14. The biggest line is the sgard
gas export line, which is 28 x 42 in the Norwegian sector
of the North Sea. This can be both pigged and inspected.
Pigging has been used for many years to clean larger
diameter pipelines in the oil industry. Today, however, the use of smaller diameter pigging systems is
now increasing in many continuous and batch proc-
ess plants as plant operators search for increased
efficiencies and reduced costs.
Pigging can be used for almost any section of the transfer
process between, for example, blending, storage or filling
systems. Pigging systems are already installed in industries
handling products as diverse as lubricating oils, paints,
chemicals, toiletries, cosmetics and foodstuffs.
Pigs are used in lube oil or painting blending: they are
used to clean the pipes to avoid cross-contamination, and
to empty the pipes into the product tanks (or sometimes to
send a component back to its tank). Usually pigging is done
at the beginning and at the end of each batch, but sometimes it is done in the midst of a batch, e.g. when producing
a premix that will be used as an intermediate component.
Pigs are also used in oil and gas pipelines: they are used
to clean the pipes but also there are smart pigs used to
measure things like pipe thickness and corrosion along
the pipeline. They usually do not interrupt production,
though some product can be lost when the pig is extracted. They can also be used to separate different
products in a multiproduct pipeline.
In conclusion pigging is an integral and critical aspect
of pipeline maintenance and operations that has been
PP
utilised for more than a century.
APR-JUN 2011
33
