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Pipeline integrity is a term that encompasses many things today: a process of prevention, detection and mitigation of failures. At Schneider Electric, we believe the industry needs to continue to place a strong, if not stronger, emphasis on attempting to prevent an unscheduled commodity release from occurring; because the consequences of failure are predictable, immediate and often grave.
Rather than focusing strategies and investment on reacting to potential issues, pipeline operators can take significant, proactive steps in real-time to avoid unscheduled commodity releases from occurring in the first place. The best defense is a good offense, and we strive to provide solutions that focus on helping you prevent commodity releases, not react to them.
In this blog, we’ll look at various aspects related to preventing pipeline commodity releases.

Design and construction factors
Designing and constructing a pipeline sounds easy enough, but as any pipeline engineer will tell you there are a lot of moving parts to ensure the right products can get from point A to point B, efficiently and safely.

Operators need to consider the long-term design lifespan of a new pipeline to determine all the different supply and delivery points, and commodity types that might travel through the pipeline. For example, terrain and weather can have a significant impact on pipeline operation, effecting the flow dynamics of the product being transported. A cheap and simple pipeline construction following the shortest route from supply point A to delivery point B may be more expensive for the operator in the long run if that route includes unsafe elevation changes. Using these variables, operators and engineers can use steady state simulation tools to test and analyze the hydraulic profiles of multiple scenarios to select the right route and the right pipeline construction elements to provide maximum safety and operational efficiency.

Operation and maintenance factors
Once the pipeline is completed, operators need to ensure the pipeline’s integrity is maintained, or even improved over time.

As construction is completed on a pipeline, it is recommended that it’s exposed to hydrostatic testing to prove the integrity of the materials used and to identify any potential leaks through monitoring real-time data. A visual inspection of both the inside and outside of the pipeline also is needed to id...