There is a tacit concern in the oil and gas industry regarding hazards of excessive cathodic
protection (CP) on pipelines. Research has shown that at ambient temperatures, overprotection
may lead to cathodic disbondment (CD) of external coatings. The relationship between pipeline
CD and CP overprotection at low temperatures was investigated by employing CD tests on
fusion-bonded epoxy (FBE)-coated samples in either soil or salt solutions, subjected to different
potentials, and subjected to freeze only or freeze/thaw cycles. The study has highlighted both
beneficial and detrimental effects of low temperatures; it has been demonstrated that freeze / thaw
cycles can exacerbate coating disbondment. While the preliminary results indicated that, in order
to reduce the risk of CD, maximum applied CP level should be approximately -1050 mV (CSE),
the testing was not extensive enough to consider this as fixed criterion for design of systems.
Keywords: cathodic protection, overprotection, disbondment, arctic, low temperature, fusion
bonded epoxy (FBE)