Arctic Standards: Recommendations on Oil Spill Prevention, Response, and Safety in the U.S. Arctic Ocean

Oil spilled in Arctic waters would be particularly difficult to remove. Current technology has not been proved to effectively clean up oil when mixed with ice or when trapped under ice. An oil spill would have a profoundly adverse impact on the rich and complex ecosystem found nowhere else in the United States. The Arctic Ocean is home to bowhead, beluga, and gray whales; walruses; polar bears; and other magnificent marine mammals, as well as millions of migratory birds. A healthy ocean is important for these species and integral to the continuation of hunting and fishing traditions practiced by Alaska Native communities for thousands of years.To aid the United States in its efforts to modernize Arctic technology and equipment standards, this report examines the fierce Arctic conditions in which offshore oil and gas operations could take place and then offers a summary of key recommendations for the Interior Department to consider as it develops world-class, Arctic-specific regulatory standards for these activities. Pew's recommendations call for improved technology,equipment, and procedural requirements that match the challenging conditions in the Arctic and for full public participation and transparency throughout the decision-making process. Pew is not opposed to offshore drilling, but a balance must be achieved between responsible energy development and protection of the environment.It is essential that appropriate standards be in place for safety and for oil spill prevention and response in this extreme, remote, and vulnerable ecosystem. This report recommends updating regulations to include Arctic specific requirements and codifying temporary guidance into regulation. The appendixes to this report provide substantially more detail on the report's recommendations, including technical background documentation and additional referenced materials. Please refer to the full set of appendixes for a complete set of recommendations. This report and its appendixes offer guidelines for responsible hydrocarbon development in the U.S. Arctic Ocean

Detection and Localization of Multiple Damages through Entropy in Information Theory

According to recent works, entropy measures, and more specifically, spectral entropies, are emerging as an efficient method for the damage assessment of both mechanical systems and civil structures. Specifically, the occurrence of structural system alterations (intended in this work as stiffness reduction) can be detected as a localized change in the signal entropy. Here, the Wiener Entropy (also known as the Spectral Flatness) of strain measurements is proved as a viable tool for single and multiple damage assessment including damage detection, localization, and severity assessment. A case study from oil & gas engineering, i.e., a finite element model of a buried steel pipeline, is utilized for this aim

Damage detection and localisation in buried pipelines using entropy in information theory

In recent years, entropy measures, and more specifically, spectral entropy have emerged as an efficient method for the damage assessment of both mechanical systems and civil structures. In the present work, entropy measures are applied as a damage-sensitive feature for the real-time structural health monitoring of buried pipelines. The management of these underground Fluids Distribution Systems (FDSs) is critical for supplying clean water, oil, gas, and other goods. However, the health state of these systems tends to deteriorate over time so that they become more vulnerable to leaks or catastrophic failure events. Maintenance surveys and visual inspections are expensive and labour-intensive, due to the difficulties in accessing buried pipelines. Thus, Vibration-Based Inspection (VBI) techniques and continuous monitoring would be perfectly suited for the task. The approach is validated numerically on the soil-structure models of a typical pipeline structure (i.e. Steel Pipes - SPs)

EOR as sequestration: Geoscience perspective

CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) has a development and operational history several decades longer than geologic sequestration of CO2 designed to benefit the atmosphere and provides much of the experience on which confidence in the newer technology is based. With modest increases in surveillance and accounting, future CO2 EOR using anthropogenic CO2 (CO2-A) captured to decrease atmospheric emissions can be used as part of a sequestration program.Bureau of Economic Geolog

Development of an ontology supporting failure analysis of surface safety valves used in Oil & Gas applications

Treball desenvolupat dins el marc del programa 'European Project Semester'.The project describes how to apply Root Cause Analysis (RCA) in the form of a Failure Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) on hydraulically actuated Surface Safety Valves (SSVs) of Xmas trees in oil and gas applications, in order to be able to predict the occurrence of failures and implement preventive measures such as Condition and Performance Monitoring (CPM) to improve the life-span of a valve and decrease maintenance downtime. In the oil and gas industry, valves account for 52% of failures in the system. If these failures happen unexpectedly it can cause a lot of problems. Downtime of the oil well quickly becomes an expensive problem, unscheduled maintenance takes a lot of extra time and the lead-time for replacement parts can be up to 6 months. This is why being able to predict these failures beforehand is something that can bring a lot of benefits to a company. To determine the best course of action to take in order to be able to predict failures, a FMECA report is created. This is an analysis where all possible failures of all components are catalogued and given a Risk Priority Number (RPN), which has three variables: severity, detectability and occurrence. Each of these is given a rating between 0 and 10 and then the variables are multiplied with each other, resulting in the RPN. The components with an RPN above an acceptable risk level are then further investigated to see how to be able to detect them beforehand and how to mitigate the risk that they pose. Applying FMECA to the SSV mean breaking the system down into its components and determining the function, dependency and possible failures. To this end, the SSV is broken up into three sub-systems: the valve, the actuator and the hydraulic system. The hydraulic system is the sub-system of the SSV responsible for containing, transporting and pressurizing of the hydraulic fluid and in turn, the actuator. It also contains all the safety features, such as pressure pilots, and a trip system in case a problem is detected in the oil line. The actuator is, as the name implies, the sub-system which opens and closes the valve. It is made up of a number of parts such as a cylinder, a piston and a spring. These parts are interconnected in a number of ways to allow the actuator to successfully perform its function. The valve is the actual part of the system which interacts with the oil line by opening and closing. Like the actuator, this sub-system is broken down into a number of parts which work together to perform its function. After breaking down and defining each subsystem on a functional level, a model was created using a functional block diagram. Each component also allows for the defining of dependencies and interactions between the different components and a failure diagram for each component. This model integrates the three sub-systems back into one, creating a complete picture of the entire system which can then be used to determine the effects of different failures in components to the rest of the system. With this model completed we created a comprehensive FMECA report and test the different possible CPM solutions to mitigate the largest risks

Peer Review Report 2006

This document is reporting findings from the research peer reviews held February 7-9, 2006 for PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety Research and Development Program. The findings and recommendations in this report derive from the scoring and comments collected from the peer review panelists. Department of Transportation (DOT) Operating Agencies (OA) are required to begin a systematic process for peer review planning for all influential and highly influential information that the OA plans to disseminate in the “foreseeable” future. Through the Information Quality Act, Congress directed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.” A resulting OMB Bulletin entitled, “Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review” was issued prescribing required procedures for Federal programs. The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) produced procedures governing modal implementation of this OMB Bulletin. These procedures as well as the OMB Bulletin serve as the basis and justification for the PHMSA Pipeline Safety R&D Program peer reviews. Peer reviews are intended to uncover any technical problems or unsolved issues in a scientific work product through the use of technically competent and independent (objective) experts. Peer review of a major scientific work product that will have the imprimatur of the Federal Government needs to be incorporated into the upfront planning of any action based in the work product. This includes obtaining the proper resources commitments (reviewers and funds) then establishing realistic schedules

Peer Review Report 2006

This document is reporting findings from the research peer reviews held February 7-9, 2006 for PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety Research and Development Program. The findings and recommendations in this report derive from the scoring and comments collected from the peer review panelists. Department of Transportation (DOT) Operating Agencies (OA) are required to begin a systematic process for peer review planning for all influential and highly influential information that the OA plans to disseminate in the “foreseeable” future. Through the Information Quality Act, Congress directed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.” A resulting OMB Bulletin entitled, “Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review” was issued prescribing required procedures for Federal programs. The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) produced procedures governing modal implementation of this OMB Bulletin. These procedures as well as the OMB Bulletin serve as the basis and justification for the PHMSA Pipeline Safety R&D Program peer reviews. Peer reviews are intended to uncover any technical problems or unsolved issues in a scientific work product through the use of technically competent and independent (objective) experts. Peer review of a major scientific work product that will have the imprimatur of the Federal Government needs to be incorporated into the upfront planning of any action based in the work product. This includes obtaining the proper resources commitments (reviewers and funds) then establishing realistic schedules

Assessment of Coating Performance for Underground Pipeline

The integrity of underground pipeline relies on the performance of the coating system. In this paper, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was used to evaluate the protective ability of polyamine cured epoxy coating in term of dielectric performance in NS4 simulated soil solution. The objective of this project is to assess the performance of good coating and physically-damaged coating of polyamine cured epoxy by obtaining the dielectric properties in simulated soil solution by using EIS and to determine the effect of coating condition on corrosion rate. The polyamine cured epoxy coating was applied to the carbon steel using airless spray gun. The thickness of coating was set according to the manufacturer specification. For physically-damaged coating, intentional coating flaws were made by stripping the coating. The EIS measurements were conducted by using three-electrode electrochemical cell system; X65 carbon steel samples (WE), a reference electrode and a counter electrode. The cell was filled with simulated soil solution (NS4). The frequency of the EIS measurement was ranged from 0.01 Hz to 100 kHz with an applied AC perturbation of ±10 mV. Based on the Bode plots, the damage coating samples showed low values of impedance compared to good coating. The results show that the damaged coating has reducing the strength of bonding between the coating particles. In term of dielectric properties, it is proposed that a coating system with good performance against corrosion show high values of and and low values of and . Based on the results, the values of and of good coating is higher than physically-damaged coating while the values of and is lower than physically-damaged coating. After 24 hours of immersion, the corrosion rate obtained from the good coating sample is 0.10× mm/yr which is significantly lower than the corrosion rate of physically-damaged coating sample which is 0.06 mm/yr. The corrosion rate of good coating is considered negligible since the value of charge transfer resistance is very high. Based on the worst case laboratory testing, a good coating can provides acceptable corrosion protection for underground pipeline

Application of Remote Sensing for the Prediction, Monitoring, and Assessment of Hazards and Disasters that Impact Transportation

Although remote sensing has been used in predicting, monitoring, and assessing hazards and disasters for over 50 years, its use in the transportation domain is still in its infancy. This study was conducted to identify the research needs involving the use of remote sensing for such applications within the transportation domain. The first step taken was to determine the current state of remote sensing applications in the transportation domain associated with the prediction, monitor, and assessment of hazards and disasters. The second step was to identify the impacts that such events may cause and the information needed to prevent or reduce their impacts. With the knowledge of the required information, remote sensing requirements and technology limitations were defined. Then according to the knowledge of the current state of research and the limitations of remote systems, future research needs were identified. Finally, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to rank these research needs