Improving Leak Detection System Design Redundancy & Accuracy

Overview

Main Objective

Leak detection systems are an important part of any overall pipeline safety and integrity strategy. The benefits of reliably and rapidly identifying a leak, so that the resulting fluid loss can be controlled and contained as soon as possible, can be very significant, particularly in High Consequence Areas (HCAs). The mission of this project is standardize the approach to designing an appropriate LDS for all pipelines, and that will be accessible to all operators – including the smaller ones – without extended and laborious front-end engineering. A central part of this approach is to concentrate upon certain key issues:

1. Beginning any LDS design process with a systematic focus on assessing requirements.
2. Accepting that one single technology will probably not provide perfect performance for all objectives, on a given pipeline. Therefore, a key issue is exploring ways to combine multiple technologies / physical principles into one system in order to address each requirement optimally.
3. Allowing the operator to be able to predict performance – and therefore cost/benefit – more reliably from the design.

Public Abstract

Leak detection systems (LDS) are an important part of an overall pipeline safety strategy. The benefits of rapidly identifying a leak are significant, particularly in High Consequence Areas (HCAs). LDS that are unreliable or insensitive are a problem. An operator with an LDS that frequently calls false alarms will regularly ignore them. Similarly, an insensitive LDS wastes money as large leaks occur before an alarm is given, while small leaks may go undetected for long periods. Leak detection is a complex engineering problem. Different pipelines have different requirements. There is no "one size fits all" LDS solution and currently there are no universally accepted design standards. This project will develop recommendations, expert guidance and draft procedures to standardize designing LDS for all pipelines, including smaller ones, without costly front-end engineering. The project will concentrate on the key issues: 1) The LDS design process with a systematic focus on assessing requirements. 2) One single technology will not provide optimal performance on a pipeline. 3) Allowing the operator to predict system performance and cost/benefit from the design process. The results of this project will be source documents and expert LDS guidance for use in operations and for developers of pipeline standards and regulatory content. An Industry Technical Committee will assist with achieving these deliverables.

Summary and Conclusions

The results of the project project serve as source documents and expert guidance for use in operations and are potentially a reference for developers of pipeline procedures and best practices with regards to accessibility, reduction of front-end engineering, and standardization of the approach for designing an LDS. It was not intended that this project alone produce recommended practices or standards.

Relevant Files & Links