Leading edge composite innovations

Petronas is the national oil company of Malaysia. The company is vested with the entire ownership and control of the petroleum resources in the country. It has since grown from merely being the manager and regulator of Malaysia’s upstream sector into a fully integrated oil and gas corporation. It is ranked amongst the Fortune Global 500 largest corporations in the world.

During JEC Asia 2012, Petronas received recognition for its technology and solutions development initiatives. Petronas’s research arm, Petronas Research Sdn Bhd, emerged as the winner in the Offshore Category of the JEC Asia Innovation Awards 2012 for its pipeline protection technology PIPEASSURE. PIPEASSURE brings solution to a long-standing challenge of corrosion and other damages to pipelines and containment vessels in the oil and gas industry. The technology is a composite resin system with proprietary epoxy formulation for onshore and offshore pipeline repairs that reinforces pipelines and protects them against corrosion. It is curable underwater and is capable of withstanding wet and harsh environments for up to 15 years. The technology is already in use in a number of Petronas’s facilities, allowing plants to run uninterrupted whilst strengthening its network of pipelines and preventing leakage. The features include: ability to be applied under dry, wet or subsea conditions; effective corrosion protection properties; extends pipeline life; pressure containment; versatile and adaptable to various size and shape of structures; no hot-work required; can be applied on live pipelines without the need to shutdown; and it is lightweight and cost effective.

Another technology is the REMCOAT. It is a three-layer pipeline coating system to provide a cost effective corrosion protection solution for oil and gas pipelines. These coatings are available in polypropylene and polyethylene and are designed to serve in various oilfield conditions. The benefits are: cost effective; provide excellent protection against corrosion in aggressive conditions; enhanced impact resistance; tested to the requirements of DIN 30670, DIN 30678 and PTS 31.04.30.31; and good process ability. REMCOAT has been successfully scaled up from laboratory to plant production environment and the system has also been applied to full size pipes at a coating plant.

According to Fadhlan Nik Abdul Aziz, Head of Product & Systems, Technology Commercialization Management, Technology & Engineering Division of Petronas: “Petronas has been undertaking R&D since the eighties. We have been quite big in R&D. It is very important and we have the financial might to invest in it. It has led to many new technologies including the PIPEASSURE system. We started using this solution in June 2009 and now we want to bring this technology to the industry for other companies to utilise.”

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