Oil and gas environments that include small concentrations of H2S have long been known to be less corrosive than similar environments without H2S. However, since there has not been a procedure for determining the minimum H2S concentration for this corrosion rate reduction, nor has there been a procedure for predicting the corrosion rate, many corrosion engineers continue to use CO2 corrosion calculations to predict worst case corrosion rates for this service. This can lead to excessively
conservative material selections and aggressive corrosion control programs that might not be needed. This work provides a method for the determination of the environmental conditions for many situations where this change from CO2 controlled to H2S controlled corrosion reactions occur. A procedure is also presented to estimate worst-case corrosion rates for these slightly sour conditions. Finally, a test facility to constructed to simulate low H2S environments while simultaneously
insuring that the small quantities of H2S provided were not consumed as corrosion products. Tests were then run in this facility to validate both the minimum concentrations required for low H2S corrosion as well as the worst-case corrosion rate.