A Venezuelan oil company is developing a project for high pressure gas injection for oil recovery. This project has a compression plant to increase the gas pressure from 1200 to 9000 psi. Due to the high gas pressure (9000 psi) and high temperature (90°C), a carbon steel API 5L-X60 with 2.5 in thickness pipe has been selected. The gas is transported from the compression plant to the injection well. This type of pipeline is unique in the world and in our knowledge no one has applied and evaluated external coating for this combination of heavy wall thickness, pressure and temperature pipeline Dual fusion bonded epoxy was selected as main coating, combined with high temperature sleeves for the joints. Several parameters were considered in the selection
of the coating high temperature, wall thickness, application condition, heat during the welding process and coating performance in the lab. The large amount of heat accumulated during the application, due to the thick wall, requires a modification of coating application parameters, as well as the cooling condition. The evaluation of the coating was performed with a specially designed test for high temperatures. The laboratory results (impact resistance, degree of curing, cathodic disbanding, adhesion and hot water immersion) indicate that the application condition used was good to obtain a product under specification.
Kevwords: coating, corrosion, protection, FBE, heavy wall thickness, pipeline, high temperature, sleeve.