Estimating corrosion growth rate for underground pipelines is a non-linear multivariate problem. There are many potential confounding variables such as soil parameters cathodic protection AC/DC interference seasonal / climate conditions and proximity to unique geographic features such as wetlands or polluted environments. The work presented provides an approach for estimating underground corrosion growth rates using a dataset of observations from a North American pipeline operator. Extensive geospatial data is utilized that has been obtained from public and private sources and extrapolated using Inverse distance weighted (IDW) interpolation. This work presents a model using IDW to estimate parameters involving soil interference geography and climate factors for any location in North America.Using this data this work then presents several different machine learning approaches including Generalized Linear Models eXtreme Boosted Trees and Neural Networks. All three provide an accurate estimation for corrosion growth rates for an underground asset at any latitude and longitude pair in North America. Each method comes with potential benefits and pitfalls specifically; trade-offs between model accuracy and transparency. This work presents a framework for comparing geo-spatial and machine learning estimates. Findings and a framework are provided for owners to assess how to think machine learning on their own assets.

On an increasingly frequent basis, pipeline operators are using risk-based decision making to prioritize cross-company expenditures. Due to the long-term mitigation benefits of Cathodic Protection (CP), when planning external corrosion mitigation activities, pipeline operators typically prioritize mitigation of deeper anomalies for integrity expenditures due to their higher Probability of Failure (PoF). However, anomalies that are not receiving adequate CP or those experiencing electrical interference may remain unaddressed using this rationale. This paper presents both a qualitative and semi-quantitative approach to support the quantification of the risk reduction benefits gained from external corrosion prevention on pipelines. This can help in the efficient prioritization of both pro-active and re-active integrity repair activities. Supporting examples are also discussed to help explain the intended use of the methodology and the interpretation of the results.

One of the pillars of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) is to let machines make decisions on behalf of humans; this paper describes new technology that allows machines to decide inspection programs and field validation and testing of results. The technology described is a part of integrity management, and uses data, statistics and expert decisions to design inspection programs. These inspection programs are an important part of the safeguarding of equipment to maintain production and safety.
This technology is a data-driven predictive model of material loss from corrosion, based on domain expert input and historical data in the form of non-destructive testing (NDT) tests. The technology trends is based on historical data and SME input, while accounting for uncertainties in NDT measurements, with uncertainties in historical trends and uncertainties in future trends. This produces a more realistic failure prediction to enhance existing RBIs and adds safety by improving on early detection of trends in data. In total, this enables the machine to update inspection plans autonomously, reducing the number of inspections significantly.
The paper also describes how the technology can be developed further to use production data and integrity operating windows to improve predictions, deal with localised corrosion and assess if the test points on a corrosion circuit are sufficient, can be reduced in number or should be manually evaluated by adding more test points.