Analysis Points To Pipe
Alloy For Safe And More
Economical LNG Transport
Freeman Langford
By Richard Freeman, Corus Tubes
and Steve Langford, J P Kenny
cess to natural gas will be a vital part
of the world’s energy strategy in the
years to come. Because the regions
of greatest new supplies are distant
from sources, demand for liquefied natural
gas (LNG) is forecast to more than double by
2020 compared to an increase of only 2-3% in
overall gas demand for the same period (Wood
Mackenzie LNG Tool 2008). LNG technology
provides the means to transport large volumes
of gas around the world in liquid form thus
bridging the transportation gap.
Conveying LNG from plant to transportation
vessel and back again requires a pipeline along
which the liquid gas flows. LNG pipelines must
be kept below circa minus 160ºC, thus intro-
ducing the need for insulation and steels that
can perform at ultra-low temperatures.
Corus Tubes is developing a cost-effective
solution for LNG conveyance and jetty lines
using 9% nickel steel, which has an established
track record of use for cryogenic applications,
but has not been fully utilized in pipelines.
The company commissioned J P Kenny Ltd,
one of the world’s largest pipeline and subsea
engineering and management contractors, to
study its relative performance for an LNG
jetty-supported unloading line compared to
conventional and alternative technologies and
to quantify the resultant potential material,
design and construction cost savings.
Innovation In LNG
Transportation
LNG is created when natural gas is cooled
from ambient temperatures to less than minus
160ºC. The cooling is performed in large indus-
trial (liquefaction) plants that take gas gathered
from contiguous fields and process it for dispatch
via vessel. The vessels themselves contain from
approximately 80,000-145,000 cubic meters of
LNG (M.W. Kellogg; LNG Terminals 2002),
which is then transported to receiving terminals
(re-gasification plants) worldwide.
66 Pipeline & Gas Journal / November 2008 / www.pgjonline.com
As demand for energy increases LNG tech-
nology is being increasingly used to exploit
reserves of “stranded gas.” LNG technology is
expensive but for distances greater than 1,000
km, it represents the most economical method
to transport natural gas. For lesser distances, gas
can be transferred in high-pressure pipelines.
Thus far, LNG installations have been polit-
ically sensitive for a number of reasons, not
least the question of safety. Large volumes of
gas stored in liquid form present a potential
catastrophe should the incorrect approach to
design and specification be taken. As such,
there is pressure on LNG-processing plants to
be remote from habitation. Furthermore, the
potential risks involved in the transfer of LNG
from plant to vessel are managed by locating
and performing the loading operation remote
from the plant and in deeper water berthing.
This requires a pipeline to move the LNG
safely from the plant to the vessel.
Material Choice And Design
There is now only one option to transfer
LNG from the shore to the vessel – through a
stainless steel rigid pipeline supported above
sea level on a jetty. There are approved sys-
tems for running the pipeline subsea but, to
date, such a system has not been applied in
practice. The transportation of LNG presents
the following challenges:
 Maintaining the low temperature of the
product to prevent it re-gasifying on the
way to the vessel.
 Selection of a pipeline material capable
of resisting the low temperatures involved
with the LNG processes.
 Conveying the pipeline from the shore
out to the vessel.
The question of material choice and design is
crucial to withstand the extreme temperature of
the fluid within the linepipe while allowing effi-
cient welding fabrication and construction. This
ultra-low temperature would render carbon steel,
the material of choice for most gas pipelines,
brittle and susceptible to fracture and pipeline
rupture. The extreme difference between the
ambient temperature of the line and the tempera-
ture of the LNG causes the pipeline to contract
considerably in length, thus inducing stresses
into the pipe material itself, with the conse-
quence of possibly exceeding the yield strength
(or design code limits) of the material. Therefore,
a suitable pipe material needs to be ductile at
low temperature, able to withstand thermal stress
and be readily welded. There are two materials
considered for these installations:
36% nickel alloy steel.
Stainless steel.
36% Nickel Alloy Steel
By alloying carbon steel with nickel the
expansion/contraction of the material under
extremes of temperature can be minimized.
This minimization is optimum with the addi-
tion of 36% nickel to the product. At these
levels of nickel the expansion is limited to
1.5 µm/mK, which is less than a tenth that of
stainless steel. It also has good fracture tough-
ness properties at low temperatures. However,
the high alloy content of this material makes it
prohibitively expensive. Furthermore, it is dif-
ficult to weld and not readily available.
Stainless Steel
Stainless steel (304L) — as compared to
36% nickel alloy steel — retains the fracture
toughness requirements, is readily available and
can be purchased at a lesser cost. However, this
material has a much greater thermal expansion
coefficient, meaning the stresses in the line need
to be managed appropriately. This has tradition-
ally been achieved by including expansion loops
in the pipeline at regular intervals along the
route length. Through these loops and complex
pipeline mountings, the stresses in the line are
managed and — through prescribed displace-
ments — stress alleviation can be achieved. The
pipeline can therefore be designed to be suitable
for these systems. Stainless steel has become
the material of choice for these installations,
despite the excessive cost of large supporting
jetty construction.
9% Nickel
Alloy Steel Pipeline
In response to the limitations of 36% nickel
alloy steel and stainless steel, Corus Tubes has
invested its efforts into the development of
9% nickel pipeline material. This material has
thermal expansion properties that lie between
stainless steel and 36% nickel alloy steel.
However, the strength of the 9% alloy is more
than three times higher than the other materi-
als and can withstand much greater internal
stresses before it reaches its design code/yield
limit. The material is available in plate form
for pipe construction and is already used in the
construction of LNG vessels. With the applica-
tion of careful design, 9% nickel pipelines can
be designed with the following cost savings
and benefits:
 Complete removal or significant reduction
in the number of required expansion loops
compared to a stainless steel solution.
 Readily available plate material for pipe.
 Lower cost base material.
 Proven weldability.
To understand the benefits that the mate-
 rial could offer a typical LNG pipeline, Corus
Tubes commissioned J P Kenny to study the
material and see how it compared in perfor-
mance to the other materials (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Table of material properties.
nal diameter and 10-mm wall thickness.
A simple L-spool end configuration was
considered (Figure 3). The dimensions of
these spool configurations were optimized

The limitations of a pipeline design are deter- for improved performance. However, the
mined by the application of piping and pipeline design was not optimized for any individual
codes as demonstrated in Figure 2. Because material as the main focus of the study was
there are no specific codes for LNG pipelines, an to understand how the materials compare.
assessment of relevant existing codes was made
to determine which was the most appli-
cable for LNG design. The report chose
the most conservative of these codes:
ASME B31.3, B31.4 and B31.5; a risk
assessment of particular projects could
elect some less conservative assump-
tions for the design. However, even
with these harsh limitations on allow- ∂ Figure 3: Spool configuration for Finite Element
able stress, the benefits of the 9% nickel Analysis (FEA).
material were clearly demonstrated.
Figure 2: Summary comparison of the piping and pipeline code allowable stress levels.

For a typical LNG-unloading pipeline, the
study explored the maximum pipeline length
that could be allowed before stress relief
was required by way of an expansion spool.
This model was applied to each material
with a representative 24-inch pipeline nomi-
The results demonstrated that the spool
conf iguration is key to the maximum
allowable pipeline length for each of the
materials. An indicative comparison of the
performance of these materials is given in
Figure 4.

68 Pipeline & Gas Journal / November 2008 / www.pgjonline.com


Figure 4: Comparison of pipe material performance to ASME B31.4.
In this simple model applied by J P Kenny
the relative performance of each material is
clearly demonstrated. The 36% nickel, without
complex design, never reaches its yield and
should not require expansion loops in any real-
istic installation. This is an incredible claim for
the material, but the costs of the material and
welding difficulties make its use prohibitive as
well as over-engineered for many applications.
Without spool optimization the application of
the 9% nickel pipe material was found to reduce
70 Pipeline & Gas Journal / November 2008 / www.pgjonline.com
in Figure 5 and the results are shown in Figure
6. From this analysis it was found that —
through spool optimization — intermediate
loops could be eradicated altogether for a
pipeline length of up to 2 km.
Further benefits could be considered by
looking at spool pre-stressing, flexible end con-
nectors or pipe-in-pipe systems. The applicabil-
ity of each of these approaches would depend
on each pipeline design. Due to the weldability
of 9% nickel, when these benefits are added
to the improved site construction pipeline, it is
the number of expansion loops by more than
three-fold compared to stainless steel pipelines.
Thus, for many jetty designs, expansion loops
may be eradicated completely, particularly with
a less conservative choice of code.
The study then proceeded to consider fur-
ther optimization of the 9% nickel design
only. For this design, larger spool geometries
were chosen but only at pipeline ends where
jetties normally increase in size. These spool
configurations and pipeline lengths are given Figure 5: Spool configurations.
clear that this material could offer significant
savings to LNG plant construction.
J P Kenny applied its experience in the
pre-estimation of the cost of these con-
structions to analyze the potential cost
savings by using 9% nickel material.
The study looked at the material cost
savings of removing spools from a jetty
pipeline and showed that material costs
of jetties and pipelines could be reduced Figure 6:
by over 12% for a typical 2.5-km jetty Maximum stress
compared to conventional stainless steel results for each
construction. spool configuration.

Manufacturing
9% Nickel Pipe
Corus Tubes manufactures 9% nick-
el alloy steel pipe on its UOE double-
submerged arc welded (DSAW) mill in
Hartlepool, UK. The mill takes plates of
9% nickel material and progressively forms
the pipe by processes of crimp, U press and
O press. The facility is predominantly used
for carbon steel pipe forming and at this
stage a carbon steel pipe would be welded
to form the finished pipe in one multi-wire
pass. However, this process is not suitable
for such highly alloyed steels. Instead,
the pipe is only continuously tack-welded
inline. Next, it is taken to another process-
ing line where it is welded using a multi-
pass procedure.
The welding process has been devel-
oped to generate material properties in
the weld that exceed those in the parent
plate while maintaining low tempera-
ture toughness.

Conclusion
Comparison of 9% nickel alloy steel
with 304L stainless steel shows that 9%
nickel pipe enables a significant reduc-
tion in the number of required expansion
hoops, delivering time and cost savings
to the client. When compared to a 36%
nickel solution, the 9% nickel pipe offers
significant savings on material cost and
subsequent on-site welding. A study by J P
Kenny also has demonstrated that, by care-
ful consideration of design and risk at the
start of a project evaluation, it is possible
to use 9% nickel to deliver useful solutions
for LNG transfer that will further increase
the viability of the technology. P&GJ
Authors: Richard Freeman is a busi-
ness development manager with Corus
Tubes and a member of the Institute of
Mechanical Engineers. He graduated from
the University of Leicester in 1992. He
joined the company in 2004 as a develop-
ment engineer. He played a major role in
the development of the company’s pipe-in-
pipe capabilities at Hartlepool, UK.
Steve Langford has more than 11 years
of working experience for J P Kenny in off-
shore oil and gas related pipeline projects
and is a multi-disciplined project/engineer-
ing manager. His experience encompasses
all aspects of pipeline design, procurement,
construction, installation and maintenance.
He is a principal member of the firm’s R&D
and Technology departments.

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