Remote pipeline integrity assessment and flow assurance using WideBand Sonar technology

Hundreds of thousands of kilometres of pipelines run on the ocean floor all over the globe. They represent the main oil & gas means of transportation from offshore structures. They are expensive and critical assets for production companies. Therefore their integrity as a structure is a key element for sustainable ocean exploitation. Blockages caused by wax or hydrates are serious production problems. Localisation and characterisation of blockages remains a big issue for production companies. Currently there are no efficient technologies to detect and characterise blockages from outside the pipeline. In this paper we develop the acoustic scattering theory for multi-layer co-centrical cylindrical structure and propose an analytic solution to the problem. We demonstrate that using WideBand Sonar (WBS) technology, it is possible to detect effectively blockages within a pipeline. Blockage scenarios are investigated using both simulated and real data.