As part of an overall review of their integrity management procedures, an operative region of the Brazilian pipeline transportation company have recently revised their pipeline maintenance plans. However, before implementation, they requested an independent 3rd party consultant, to verify that the plan was in line with current “industry best practice” and that it would assist in their goal of reducing future failure rates to as low a value as possible. To achieve this objective, the consultant devised a 96-point benchmark questionnaire relating to nine pipeline integrity issues, including in-line inspection (ILI) policy, defect assessment and repair criteria, procedures to mitigate the risks of 3rd party damage, spill management and emergency planning. 16 companies responded to the questionnaire. By analyzing the responses, we were able to relatively rank all 16 companies, and demonstrated that adoption of the revised maintenance plan would result in the operator being in the upper quartile. On the above basis, we have concluded that the operator’s revised plan complied with “best industry practice” and that, on implementation, was more than adequate to achieve their desired goals.
Keywords: pipelines, integrity management, maintenance plan, benchmarking, industry best practice