Thousands of kilometers of pipelines are being utilized to transport produced water among different regions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Underground pipelines, carrying produced water, are externally subjected to different types of soil. In order to protect them, an external coating and internal cement lining are applied. Produced water had fixed parameters quality range for long periods of time. Decisions were made to increase the concentration of total dissolved solids (TDS) of the produced water from 130 ppm to 300 ppm plus. An increase in TDS of produced water would raise chloride ion concentration.

The current research aims to measure the effects of higher content of chloride in produced water on water pipelines. Onsite visual inspection of pipeline internals was performed after 1 year of exposure to new TDS range. In addition to that, corrosion behavior of carbon steel and two types of stainless steel in different chloride concentrations and temperatures were studied through weight loss and electrochemical methods.

Results showed that carbon steel experienced the highest corrosion rates at higher temperatures. Changing the content of chloride had small effects on corrosion rate at the same temperature. Stainless steels were resistant enough to both chloride concentration differences and varying temperatures.