The increase in use of high quality and expensive pipeline coatings has heightened the need for field joint coating systems to match the quality of the factory coating. Recent developments in field joint coating technology have gone a long way to address this need. This paper describes one major Middle Eastern oil and gas company's experience with a number of
field joint coating systems for three layer polyethylene and polypropylene coated pipes. This experience includes coating well over a 100,000 field joints in some of the toughest conditions (extreme heat and humidity, coupled with sand storms) existing in any oil & gas field. A comparison is made between the different field joint coating systems in terms of technical characteristics, cost and ease of application in the field. The relative scarcity of international standards, and hence the importance of pre-qualification trials & production testing in the field is also highlighted.
Keywords: coating, pipeline, underground, field joint, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyurethane, FBE, heat shrink sleeve, tape wrap, flame spray