A novel method to mitigate the top of the line corrosion in wet gas pipelines by corrosion inhibitor within a foam matrix

Abstract

Top of the Line Corrosion (TLC) has been a serious issue for the Oil & Gas industry. Conventional inhibition techniques are expensive and often do not seem to provide enough protection to the steel surface at the top of the pipe. A novel idea is to inject the corrosion inhibitor within a foam matrix. The foam slug is first formed at an injection port and carried along the pipe by the gas phase. This process ensures homogeneous delivery of the inhibitor to the pipe wall along pipe sections suffering from TLC. This paper presents more comprehensive study performed in an innovative glass cell setup which consisted of a foaming cell and a corrosion cell in order to simulate intermittent contact between the foam and the steel surface. Corrosion measurements were performed using electrochemical techniques (EIS, LPR, potentiodynamic sweep) and electrical resistance (ER) measurements, in order to determine the inhibitive performance of investigated inhibitor talloil diethylenetriamine imidazoline (TOFA/DETA imidazoline) within a foam matrix (sodium C14-16 olefin sulfonate).