CORROSION: TECHNICAL AND ECONOMIC DRIVER

FOR INDONESIA OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY

1. Aswin Tino (MottMac Abu Dhabi, aswin.tino@mottmac.com)*
2. Dr. Ir. Slameto Wiryolukito (Material Science and Engineering Research Group ITB,, slameto@material.itb.ac.id)**
3. Muhammad Abduh (PT. Rekayasa Solverindo, abduh@reksolindo.co.id)***

I. Introduction
Major reasons to concern about corrosion are: safety and economic. Several modes of corrosion can
be detrimental and can lead to catastrophic accident to people safety and environment conservation.
Several researches in United States and Europe highlighted corrosion as biggest internal damage
contributor to engineering structures. A significant economy impact of corrosion and corrosion
control also reported. Indonesia Oil and Gas Industry have already invested lot of money in
development of facilities upstream and downstream that including offshore/onshore production
platforms, refining facilities, and petroleum distribution networks. This paper will present a
overview of the activity in corrosion control in global oil and gas industry and searching for the
driver for implementation of more effective and economic corrosion control strategy in Indonesia.

Corrosion is a natural tendency of materials to return to their most thermodynamically stable state.
This process is usually deteriorative to materials. Corrosion control to prevent this deterioration is
by three general ways: control the environment, design the materials, and design a barrier between
the material and its environment. A typical approach for corrosion control program applicable for
oil and gas industry can be seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Typical Corrosion Control Program

II. Corrosionomic
Corrosion itself and efforts in fighting destruction effect of corrosion to materials has significant
implication in economic and business process (corrosionomic).
Method for estimating the corrosion impact to national economy was proposed by:
- Uhlig Method that more emphasize in production aspects;
- Hoar Method that more emphasize in sectoral contribution;
- In/Out Method that also estimate indirect cost of corrosion;

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The economy of corrosion in was studied by Battelle (1995) 1 and CC Technologies (2002) 2 in
United States and in Japan by Society of Corrosion Engineering and Japan Association of Corrosion
Control (1997) 3 , Figure 2. Corrosion cost distribution of both countries differs significantly and
remarkably can be effected by the estimating the indirect cost. Indirect cost in high oil and gas
economic like United States country definitely must be higher than Japan.

Figure 2. Corrosion Cost Distribution in US and Japan

Battelle found that most expenditure in US is due to extensive development and application of
corrosion resistant alloy (CRA) materials (56%) and protective coating (30%). Cathodic protection
program which has significant impact on protection system and complimentary to protective coating
contribute only 4% of the total corrosion cost. Slight different magnitude also contributes by
corrosion inhibitor application and development of non-metal materials (e.g plastic pipe, fiber
reinforced plastic).

In/Out method, one of the methods used by CC Technologies divided corrosion cost into two
categories:
- Direct Cost that made up of:
¾ Cost of Design, Manufacturing and Construction: materials selection, coating,
sealants, inhibitor, cathodic protection, including labor cost and equipment;
¾ Cost of Management: inspection, rehabilitation, repair, and loss of productive
maintenance;

1
Holbrook, D., Economic Effects of Metallic Corrosion in the United States, http://www.battelle.org/pr/12corrode.html ,
1-1-1996, Battelle Memorial Institute
2
Koch M. P. H G. H.,.. Brongers N. G. Thompson Y. P. Virmani J. H. Payer, Corrosion Cost and Preventive Strategies
in the United States, 2002
3
Survey of Corrosion Cost in Japan, Committee on Cost of Corrosion in Japan, Tokyo, 1997

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 - Indirect Cost includes loss productivity because of outages, delays, failures, litigation,
and taxes of the overhead corrosion cost.

Oil and gas sector contributed 18% to total US national corrosion cost. Detailed for this sector, the
study showed that the activity for transporting and storage of gas and liquid contributing the highest
corrosion cost (79,6%), followed by refining activities (14,8%), and exploration to production
(5,6%), Table 1. The study also has conservatively estimated that total corrosion cost doubled by
indirect cost. Both studies agree that effective corrosion control can save up to 40% of total
corrosion cost. Effectivity of corrosion control program is determined by how much of indirect cost
can be saved, Figure 3.

Table 1a. Cost of Corrosion in United States Oil and Gas Sector (CC Technologies, 2002)

Different corrosion cost distribution in Japan can be explained further in economic aspects of
respective industries (e.g. transportation, manufacturing, oil and gas, energy, infrastructure)
compared with United States.

Figure 3. Corrosion Control Cost Distribution and Measurement of Effectivity

If we can conservatively make a simple assumption, that oil and gas economic characteristic
relatively similar, corrosion control and management in Indonesia perform as well as in US and
both technical and legislative regulation as strict as in United States, corrosion cost (direct and
indirect) in Indonesia oil and gas sector estimated to reach 1,12% of Indonesia Gross Domestic
Product (GDP). This figure if we extrapolated to Indonesia GDP in 2006 4 equals to USD 3,74
billion. Cost saving through better corrosion control programs equals to USD 1,5 billion.

4
www.bps.go.id

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Significant impact of corrosion to the economy could be happened for Indonesia oil and gas
industry. If so this issue should be able to raise the level of concern and awareness amongst the
stakeholder (material producers, EPC companies, operator, and policy maker). As we can learn
from the fact above, a large amount of money can be saved firstly by shifting paradigm of
“corrosion as maintenance issue” to new paradigm “corrosion control as integrated company plan”.

III. Corrosion Mode

Knowledge basis for corrosion phenomenon is a thermochemical process. There are eight basic
form of corrosion common in petroleum production and process industry, Table 2. Other special
form of corrosion that associated with specific hydrocarbon and refining industries are: carburation
and metal dusting. Understanding corrosion mechanisms will be much helpful to develop corrosion
control practice. Corrosion can attack almost all engineering structures equipments and systems:
fixed/floating offshore structure, piping system, storage tank, vessel, boiler, etc. Detrimental effects
can occur when corrosion accompanied synergistically by mechanical load (static, cyclic). More
concern should be given due to stress corrosion cracking, pitting, and intergranular corrosion as
these types of corrosion is the most cause of failure in gas pipeline and process industry 5,6 , Figure 4.
Table 2. Summarized Corrosion Mode 7, 8 , 9

5
Congleton, J., Stress Corrosion Cracking of Stainless Steels, in Shreir, L. L., Jarman, R. A., and Burstein, G. T. (eds.),
Corrosion Control. Oxford, UK, Butterworths Heinemann, 1994, pp. 8:52–8:83
6
Gas Pipeline Incidents – 6th EGIG Report 1970-2004 Document Number EGIG 05.R.0002, European Gas Pipeline
Incident Data Group, Groningen, 2005
7
Schwenk, W, Fundamentals and Concepts of Corrosion and Electrochemical Corrosion Protection, Handbook of
Corrosion and Cathodic Protection, Houston , 1971
8
Roberge, R Pierre, Corrosion Engineering, New York, 1999
9
Schweitzer, Phillip A, Fundamentals of Metallic Corrosion Atmospheric and Media Corrosion of Metals, Sound
Parkway Florida, 2007

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Corrosion in oil and gas production in many references simply categorized as sour corrosion in H2S
service and sweet corrosion in CO2 service. Stress corrosion cracking become special concern in
sour gas pipeline due to its potential for pipeline failure.

IV. Corrosion Resistance Materials Selection

Beside general requirement in mechanical basis, fabrication, maintainability, and cost, design of
materials for corrosion protection should evaluate corrosivity variables as follow but not limited to:
- CO2 content;
- H2S content;
- Oxygen or oxidizing agents content;
- Operating temperature and pressure
- Erosion; and
- Organic Acid and Halide

For many provided guidelines, reference, and recommended practice in oil and gas industry, care
should be taken for specific condition of operation variables, environment, and type of equipment
and the possibility to introduce specific corrosion mechanism. Output of material selection program
is appropriate materials for specific service condition as well as assurance for fabrication and
maintainability. Several selection guideline and verification tools considerable for material
procurement are as follow:

- Guideline for materials selection for corrosion protection:

¾ API 5L (general material requirement for oil and gas production)
¾ NACE MR 0175 (carbon and low alloy selection)
¾ EFC Document Number 16 (carbon and low alloy for H2S service)
¾ EFC Document Number 23 (carbon and low alloy for CO2 service)
¾ Norsok M-001 (corrosion materials for offshore and onshore)
¾ ISO 15156 Series (corrosion materials for H2S service)
¾ DNV RP F-112 Draft Version April 2006(duplex stainless steel design for
subsea application)
¾ DNV OS B-101 (corrosion resistant metal for offshore application)

- Corrosion testing of material

¾ NACE TM-0177 or EFC Document Number 17 (SCC laboratory test)
¾ NACE TM-0284 (HIC laboratory test method)
¾ ASTM G-150:99R04 and ASTM G-0048:03 (critical pitting temperature test
method)
¾ AWS A4.2-91 or ISO 8249 (ferrite number of duplex stainless steel conversion
from magnetic measurement)

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 (a) (b)
Figure 4 Stainless Steel Failure by Corrosion in Process Industry, 3b.Gas Pipeline Corrosion Failure (EGIG)

V. Protective Coating
Coating is primary corrosion protection method for metals. Corrosion protective performance of
coating can be evaluated from the following 10 :
- Mechanical resistance and adhesion;
- Chemical stability;
- Permeability for corrosive agents;
- Electrochemical stability;
Coating for corrosion protection can be broadly divided into: metallic (zinc, chromium, aluminum),
inorganic (enamels, glasses, ceramic, glass reinforced lining), and organic coatings (epoxies, alkyd,
acrylics, polyurethanes). Steel Structures Painting Council (SSPC) as authorized organization in
coating technology provides a series in coating guidelines consist of:
- Surface Preparation Standard;
- Painting System and Coating System Standards Guide and Specification;
- Qualification Procedures and Quality System

VI. Corrosion Inhibitor

Inhibition is alternative corrosion control in oil and gas production, complementary to corrosion
resistance material and coating. Exact inhibition mechanism is still in hypothesis until now.
Inhibition mechanism once provided by inhibitor molecule that develops a barrier between the
corrosive water phase and the metal surface 11 . Most of the inhibitors currently used in producing
wells are organic nitrogenous compounds. Dosage of inhibitor mainly based on the corrosivity of
the environment (oil well, gas production, transport line). The efficiency of corrosion inhibitor
shows a significant effect for lowering corrosion rate 12,13 . European Federation of Corrosion (EFC)
recommended a guideline for the application of corrosion inhibitor as follow:
- Key factors that affect performance:
¾ Inhibitor efficiency or reduction in corrosion rates;
¾ Solubility and oil/water partitioning behavior;
¾ Optimum concentration
¾ Film stability (flow conditions, temperature).
10
Heim, G; Schwenk, W, Coatings for Corrosion Protection, Handbook of Cathodic Corrosion Protection, Houston,
1971
11
EFC Publication Number 39, The Use of Corrosion Inhibitors in Oil and Gas Production.
12
3. A. J. McMahon and D. M. E. Paisley, Corrosion Prediction Modelling, BP Sunbury Report,
ESR.96.ER.066, November, 1997.
13
J. Mendoza-Flores and S. Turgoose, A rotating cylinder electrode study of cathodic kinetics
and corrosion rates in CO2 corrosion, Corrosion '95, Paper No. 124, NACE International,

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 - Compatibility of the corrosion inhibitor with:
¾ The production fluids;
¾ Other chemicals;
¾ Downstream processing of produced fluids
¾ All materials in the injection and production systems (e.g elastomers, seals,
liners);
- Environmental Issues (biodegradability, toxicity, bioaccumulation)
- Economic (cost, availability of products)

VII. Cathodic Protection

Technology behind cathodic protection (CP) is based on simple principle as to minimize anodic
dissolution by application cathodic current. Electrochemistry theory first significant application for
cathodic protection was by Sir Humphrey Davy in 1761 for copper wooden ships 14 . The first
cathodic protection was applied by Robert J. Kuhn for oil and gas pipeline in New Orleans in 1928.
The first cathodic protection standard was drawn in DIN 30676 in 1984. Design of cathodic
protection demands accurate information of the nature of the corrosive medium, shape of the
structures to be protected, and environment as described in Table 3.

Deepwater Challenge
Development of offshore cathodic protection requires more detailed guidelines for deepwater
platform because of CP design parameter (seawater salinity, dissolved oxygen, temperature,
hydrostatic pressure, and presence of calcareous deposits) changes significantly in this depth.
Available guidelines from NACE and DNV are applicable and approved for shallow water (<300
meters). Having similar oceanographic characteristic, Indonesian CP designer can share Gulf of
Mexico offshore project experience which has reached 900 meter water depth 15 , Figure 5.

Hydrogen Embrittlement

Hydrogen embrittlement relatively is not a new phenomenon. The loss of ductility due to diffusion
of evolved hydrogen from cathodic polarization lead to cracking when component experience load
stress and or residual stress, referred as hydrogen induced stress cracking (HISC). The increase use
of materials with less proven record in seawater cathodic protection environment has raised the
profile of this degradation mechanism in recent years. Another difficulty of cathodic protection for
subsea equipments and systems is due to the complexity of subsea component systems. Subsea
component that have suffered this failures are: flowlines, manifold hub connector, instrumentation
fitting, and circlip fastener 16 . Susceptibility of HISC in several references associated with the effect
of residual stress, material and microstructures, cathodic potential parameter (protection potentials
and the choose of anodes) 17, 18 , 19 , 20 .

14
The History of Corrosion Protection, W.V Baeckman, Handbook of Cathodic Corrosion Protection, Houston, 1971
15
Fairhurst, D, Offshore Cathodic Protection. What We Have Learnt, Journal of Corrosion Science and Engineering.
www.umist.ac.uk/corrosion/jcse, UK 2004.
16
Fairhurst, D Murphy W and Amon C, The Failure of Minor Components with Disappropriate Consequences. UK
Corrosion 98
17
Festy D, Cathodic Protection of Steel in Deep Sea: Hydrogen Embrittlement Risk and Cathodic Protection. NACE
Corrosion Paper No 01011 2001
18
Woolin P and Murphy W, Hydrogen Embrittlement Stress Corrosion Cracking of Superduplex Stainless Steel, Paper
01018 Corrosion 2001, Houston
19
A.Pourbaix Supermartensitic Steels ’99, S99-33 Page 283 “Cathodic Protection of Supermartensitic 13 Cr Stainless
Steels Without Hydrogen Damage”
20
12 R.Lye. Materials Performance P 24, October 1988, “Current Drain to Cathodically Protected Stainless Steels in
Seawater”

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Microstructural features of stainless steel that shall be controlled are: ferrite content, austenite
spacing, and grain flow, as recommended in DNV RP F-112 21 . Resistance to HISC decreases in
coarse aligned ferrite-austenite microstructure and or with the presence of third phases (nitrides,
alpha prime e.g. in superduplex stainless 25Cr). Therefore more detailed microstructure assessment
should incorporate for more accurate and valid results.

Safe cathodic protection design for high susceptibility of hydrogen embrittlement in sea water can
be achieved by electrical solution by the use of diode as a potential buffer and by selecting
alternative lower voltage of sacrificial anode.

Cathodic Protection Maintenance

Table 3. Summarized Cathodic Protection Designs and Guidelines

Maintenance of cathodic protection system is important to maintain the protective performance of

the system to protected structures. Simple control point for review and maintenance of cathodic
protection system are as follow:
- Monitoring of electrical system that include: electrical instruments (power supply,
rectifier, transformer, cable connection)
- Monitoring of primary protective coating of the protected structures (pipelines, platform).
E.g Pipe-to-soil Potential measurement. Any coating faults can make “overload”
protection current. Therefore cathodic protection system should be review: e.g raise the
coating breakdown factor ;
- Monitoring protected structure potential. Obtaining CP potential along the protected
structures can be difficult in offshore pipelines, which requires diver-man or remote
operated vehicle and wired or wireless potential measurement device.

VIII. Corrosion Monitoring and Inspection

The main purposes of corrosion monitoring and inspection are
- Evaluation Purpose:
¾ Materials under service conditions;
¾ Control of the production process (periodic, integrated, online assessment);
- Information Basis:

21
DNV RP F-112, Design Of Duplex Stainless Steel Subsea Equipment Exposed to Cathodic Protection, Draft Issue
April 2006

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 ¾ Material Selection;
¾ Life assessment (corrosion defect assessment, remaining strength assessment);

Corrosion monitoring for many years utilized for upstream and downstream oil and gas industry
involving quite varying technology, from simple chemical coupon to sophisticated automatic inline
inspection tools, Table 4. Data combining (fluid corrosivity, corrosion rate, coating fault, metal loss
sizing) from these corrosion monitoring activity can be utilized further to assess the overall integrity
of engineering structures against corrosion attack.

Figure 5. Offshore Cathodic Protection Challenge

Table 4.a. Corrosion Monitoring Techniques

Table 4.b. Aboveground Inspection Techniques

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IX. Corrosion Assessment

Output of corrosion assessment is a run-repair-replace decision. Methodology for corrosion

assessment can be divided into two categories:
- Data evaluation – Information can be provided by inline inspection, NDT inspection,
visual examination, and on-site mechanical testing;
- Data evaluation and detailed inspection. More recent direct assessment methodology
from NACE and GTI are basically consists of data evaluation (historical data, detailed
inspection data) and inspection (indirect inspection, direct examination)

Direct assessment becomes important choice for pipeline integrity management when inline
inspection meets geometry restrictions or pressure testing become very expensive. Corrosion direct
assessment methodologies and protocol published by NACE are:
- External Corrosion Direct Assessment by NACE RP 0502:2002
- Stress Corrosion Cracking Direct Assessment by NACE RP 0204: 2004
- Internal Corrosion Direct Assessment for Dry Gas will be NACE RP 0104:2005
- Internal Corrosion Direct Assessment for Wet Gas by NACE

Direct assessment (ECDA, ICDA, SSCDA) are typical four step process consists of: pre-assessment,
indirect inspection, direct examination, and post-assessment. Simplified ECDA workflow can be
seen in Figure 6. Effectiveness of these direct assessments in some references relatively
varying 22 , 23 , 24 . Southwest Research Institute reported that 85% anomalies inspected by inline
inspection successfully predicted by dry gas ICDA. Most agree that for more accurate result,
alternative validation must be considered as follow:
- NACE External Corrosion Direct Assessment should consider other inspection tools
complimentary to tools in selection matrix (analog DCVG, CIPS, Soil Resistivity) ;
- NACE Internal Corrosion Direct Assessment should incorporate alternative
probabilistic analysis (e.g. Mechanical Failure by Thacker, Risk Indexing System by
Muhlbauer, First Order Reliability Method by Ahmamed and Melchers) to reduce bias
from data uncertainty (e.g. the use of pipeline elevation profile map)

Corroded Pipeline Rehabilitation

22
Cathodic Protection, Coatings, and the NACE External Corrosion Direct Assessment (ECDA) RP 0502-2002, Journal
of Corrosion Science and Engineering, Dr J M Leeds Pipeline Integrity Management Ltd, Corbett House, Swan Lane,
Hindley Green, Wigan. WN2 4EY. UK, 2004
23
Internal Corrosion Direct Assessment of Gas Transmission And Storage Lines, Narasi Sridhar, Ben Thacker, Amit
Kale, and Chris Waldhart,Southwest Research Institute for Research and Special Programs Administration Office of
Pipeline Safety (OPS),2004
24
SSCDA Prediction Model for Cathodically Protected Onshore Gas Transmission Pipeline with Coal Tar Enamel
Coating, Jamalee Ahmad, Musfizree, Mustaffa, Khairul Ismail, and Dr. Melor Murni Mohamed Mustakim, Petronas
Group Technology Solution, 2nd NDT & Corrosion Management Asia Conference 2006 Singapore.

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Requirement for pipeline rehabilitation program has already governed in several design guidelines
(ASME B31.8 for gas transmission pipeline and ASME B31.4 for liquid pipelines, API 1107).
Pipeline operator prefer conservatively replace pipeline segment if the malfunction is a leak or
stress concentration. For corroded pipeline under safety criterion sleeve-weld repair become the
choice. Besides standardized method in above guidelines considerable alternative technique for for
pipeline rehabilitations 25,26 are:
- Field coating removal by Borehole Reconditioning System (BRS) is a high power water
blast plus air abrasive blast to remove old coating;
- Clock Spring Method. A non-welded sleeve in a form composite coil consists of glass
fiber wrap, adhesive, inter-layer filler material, and additional coating.
X. Conclusion
Corrosion cost to the national economy gives a significant number. Indonesia oil and gas industry
can save up to USD 1,5 Billion through better managed corrosion control. Higher level of
effectivity and efficiency of corrosion control can only be achieved if corrosion placed as integrated
plan of the company more than just maintenance issue. Integrated plan of corrosion control in
Indonesia can chase the global opportunity in corrosion control, methodologies and technologies
that cover broad scope ranging from material management, protective coating and inhibition,
cathodic protection, corrosion monitoring and inspection, and corrosion assessment.

Acknowledgement
The Authors would like to extend their most sincere gratitude to all sources for open-for-public
technical papers to develop this paper.

About the Authors

* Corrosion Engineer at Mottmac Abu Dhabi Uni Arab Emirate
** Senior Lecturer at Material Engineering and Mechanical Engineering ITB
*** Material Engineering Consultant to PT. Rekayasa Solverindo

25
John, Robin., "Field Recoating Using the 3 Layer System", Proceedings of the 7th Annual Pipeline Monitoring &
Rehabilitation Seminar, February 6-9, 1 995
26
Kelty, W., Paul., "Composite Sleeves for Pipeline Integrity: Part II", Proceedings of the 7th Annual Pipeline
Monitoring & Rehabilitation Seminar, February 6-9, 1 995.

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Figure 6. Simplified NACE External Corrosion Direct Assessment with supporting guidance by GTI PIM
ECDA Protocol (shaded).

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