Following the discovery that the souring of various process streams by hydrogen sulphide can cause cracking in carbon steel, the work to identify the mechanisms has steadily increased. There have been many
published reports by a range of interested parties, both academic and industrial based, which attempt to identify and quantify these mechanisms. These have been eagerly seized upon by the users to try and improve working life, and some significant steps forward have been made, e.g. low sulphur steel and control of weld hardness. However, the proposed practices are only as good as the service life they provide. In order to further this cause, the Engineering Equipment and Material Users Association was formed. It was formed from the Oil Companies Material Association (OCMA) and the Engineering Equipment and Material Users Association (EEMUA) with the intention of pooling practical experience from its members to provide “best advice” data. In this way the continual recommended practice and field experience feed back approach can produce useful information. As the problem of H2S cracking is world wide and its members are also employees of world wide operating companies, the experience is far and wide. This also includes data exchange with other organisations such as API, NACE, EFC etc.. In this way the collection and assessment of data and user experience is maximised.