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4 pipeline technology journal february 2017 issue 1 special issue: comprehensive topics taking-off with uavs: just hype or a future key technology in pipeline integrity management 06 asset management of high pressure installations: project graid - an innovation project to develop a robotics sys- tem for internal inspection of buried pipework 16 hot tapping and product theft on pipelines: a way to detect and locate these spots during normal op- eration 26 reports conferences / seminars / exhibitions event preview: pipeline technology conference 2017 core statements from the last ptc upcoming eitep seminars event calendar 34 36 38 40 this issue’s complete contentcontentresearch / development / technology technical articles

taking-off with uavs: just hype or a future key technology in pipeline integrity management?josef alois birchbauer > siemens ag austriastefan wakolbinger > siemens ag austriamichael hornacek > siemens ag austriaclaudia windisch > siemens ag austriamike liepe > siemens agabstractunmanned aerial vehicles (uavs) have been gaining immense attention in the last years for commercial applications as well as for private users. in this work we analyze the momentum of uavs in the context of pipeline inspection. we briefly present general trends and existing regulations with respect to uavs deemed to be relevant in the context of oil and gas transmission pipelines. next we give an overview of potential uav-based applications in pipeline integrity management including change detection, leak detection, and surface inspection tasks. we report on a technical solu-tion developed at siemens including our field experiences and results obtained with pilot customers.

8 pipeline technology journal the regulatory framework nowadays in europe uas/rpas fall under a fragmented reg- ulatory framework. pending the publication of the final easa rule, the easa mandates an interim rule for the operation of unmanned aircraft to the easa member states. the member states have included requirements for the operation of unmanned operation into national regula- tions. table 1 provides an overview of different regulations in place with respect to maximum-takeoff-mass (mtom) and vlos / blos operation as described above. in the u.s. the history on uav regulations can be briefly summa- rized as follows: in 2007 the federal aviation administration (faa) issued a policy statement prohibiting the use of drones for commercial purposes. in 2012 the congress passed the faa modernization and reform act, which encouraged the integration of drones in u.s. airspace. meanwhile the “section 333 exemption” in place since sept. 2015 is an interim certification process that allows for the commercial use of “drones” prior to the faa finalizing the rules on small uas. figure 2 gives a roadmap of the ongoing uav rule-making progress in the eu and u.s. and indicates foreseen dates of mile- stones by easa and faa respectively as known in jan. 2016. table 1: rpas regulation in europe (as of march 2014). (source [17]) figure 2: roadmap of uav-rule making progress in the eu and usa. (source [16]) research / development / technology

10 pipeline technology journal an overview on sensor modalities for monitoring & inspection a comprehensive listing of available uav-mounted sensors is given in [8]. the tabular information lists imaging sensors, non-imaging sensors, as well as others. the last category includes, for instance, actuators such as illuminators. since [8] aims to give the global perspective on rpas, the authors cover both military and non-military applications. the market for imaging sensors appears to be the broadest, and offers a variety of different modalities. in the terminology of [8], imag- ing sensors encompass both 2d and 3d (i.e. depth) sensors. table 3: sensor modalities for monitoring & inspection we classify the sensor modalities in the following categories with respect to spatial dimension (see table 3). key for all sensing mo- dalities is precise alignment of data (geocoding). this is achieved by gnss/rtk, which in contrast to standard gps with about 5 m uncertainty allows for cm-grade absolute positioning in real-time. the precision of the geographical alignment also sets a lower bound on the smallest detectable geometric deviation in change detection between consecutive data acquisitions. a formal functional model for uas-based monitoring & inspection any uas for monitoring & inspection tasks can be divided formally into three different pillars: • platform: an uas encompassing the uav as a phys- ical aerial carrier vehicle, plus the flight planning and flight control sensing: a payload consisting of the measurement instrumentation (sensors) processing: the data analytics that converts the raw sensor data into valuable insights. this also calls for appropriate visualization e.g. in scada in order to derive the right control actions. • • the authors of this paper tend to believe that the degree of innovation we are going to see within the next years will form a ‘ü’-like shape amongst these three pillars. while in terms of mechatronic design the platform is already a widespread (basic) technology, innovation is likely to come from fully autonomous flight control with respect to collision detection and prevention (“sense and avoid”). in this respect darpa is pushing an ambitious program called “fla” for lightweight autonomous flying in cluttered (includ- ing indoor test scenarios and hence gps-denied) environ- ments and reports on achieving target speed of 20 meters per second [11]. in addition, boosting endurance is a hot topic. a promising approach for long range observations appears to be hybrid-electric technology as showcased by the startup skyfront [12]. skyfront offers the “tailwind”, a multirotor uav featuring up to 4 hours of flying time with 2 kg of payload. the sensing devices required for the vast majority of moni- toring & inspection tasks are already commercialized, as briefly presented in the previous section. incremental innovations are expected with respect to miniaturization of electronic compo- nents as well as a reduction in price. hence the key differentia- tion between uav-based monitoring & inspection solutions has to be expected from processing, which incorporates domain specific knowledge and is highly specific for the task hand. this means the task specific adaption across the three pillars is clearly progressive. the uav is mostly generic, the sensing is a selection of proper sensing components for the measure- ment task, while the processing is highly tailored. this by no means precludes the possibility that processing itself be built upon reusable’s. ‘change detection’, for instance, is a general concept of data analytics applicable to various monitor- ing & inspection tasks. however, the interpretation of detected changes as relevant or not is highly application specific. the three aspects are to a certain degree interchangeable as long as given constraints are met. for instance a sensory head can be mounted on any vehicle as long as payload constraints are met and the flight characteristics of the vehicle are sufficient for data capture at reasonable data fidelity. the processing can be tightly coupled to the sensing and the platform in terms of an onboard processing, but for many use cases one could think on an offline processing for instance offered as a cloud-service. in accordance with these findings, we propose the architecture of our solution as follows. we make a clear distinction be- tween the uav (“acquisition layer”) and the data processing and analytics (“pipeline processing platform” - ppp). commu- nication/user interaction is preformed using a web interface. within the framework of the ppp, we make a distinction between time-consuming modules (“core modules”) that run as batch-jobs, and online reporting modules, which generate the requested information on demand (“analytics modules”). geospatial data is stored in a geospatial database [18]. research / development / technology

12 pipeline technology journal based on deep learning still require that training data be available and has to be labeled manually. in the case of soil upheaval and erosions this concept is likely to perform weakly since such soil changes inherently form a relative instead of an absolute condition. change detection on the other hand can simply compare consecutive observations as long as the data observations can be aligned with reasonable precision. change detection actually subsumes three different aspects (see figure 6), and these aspects partially overlap. for instance by no means are all geometric and/or radiometric changes semanti- cally relevant in the context of pipeline monitoring. also some relevant conditions can be determined equally in the radiometric as well as geometric domain (e.g. a damage of grassland due to excavation work), while some show up only in one domain (e.g. discoloring of plants in an early stage of dying vegetation). figure 6: aspects of change detection. (semantic labeling result credit of definiens imaging gmbh) for most semantic interpretation tasks the human perfor- mance is still unmatched in terms of domain know-how as long as the amount of data to be observed is kept reason- ably small. hence by means of automatic change detection – in the radiometric and geometric domain - we greatly reduce the amount of data requested for human investigation, whilst the judgment of whether or not a change is semantically meaningful is left open to the human observer. an impression on what is technically feasible by means of airborne laser scanning (als) is given in figure 7. key to obtaining these results has been proper post- processing (“automatic strip adjustment”) [15]. in als point clouds are collected strip wise with a considerable overlap. the redundant information contained in these overlap areas can be used, together with ground-truth data, to re-cali- brate the als system and to compensate for systematic measurement errors. in figure 8 we present some results obtained with our pro- cessing workflow that aims for estimating the limits of geo- metric change detection by placing objects on the ground. at siemens we have an in-house structure-from-motion (sfm) workflow that generates amongst other representa- tions and rgb-nir-d orthophoto which is the perfect base for change detection both in the geometric and radiomet- ric domain. sfm [9] refers to the process of estimating three-dimensional structures from two-dimensional image sequences which may be coupled with local motion signals. in our case geometric alignment is based on gnss/rtk measurements of a novatel oem617 [10]. pipeline depth-of-cover monitoring depth-of-cover refers to how far a pipeline is buried under- ground. most pipelines are under a soil cover of about 1 m and depending on pipeline diameter, 4 m to 10 m wide row (right-of-way) is specified above the pipelines. during the life-time of a pipeline soil cover may be altered due to exca- vation activities, erosion, cultivation, construction, flooding, ground subsidence or other environment factors or human intervention. it is an obligation of the pipeline operator to make sure that the depth-of-cover still meets applicable minimum regulatory requirements, while it is common prac- tice to exceed the minimum regulatory requirement during construction, e.g. 1.2 instead of 1.0 m. deviations in the soil cover can be detected either be- tween consecutive observations (relative change detec- tion) or with respect to the locations given by the initial terrestrial surveying during construction of the pipeline (absolute change detection). terrestrial surveying yields “cadastral accuracy” which implies targeted accuracies for about ± 3-5 cm. considering the tolerances during pipeline building we conclude that we need to measure devia- tions in soil cover with overall accuracies of about 10 cm, which also implies that the accuracy of data alignment of consecutive measurements or with the terrestrial survey- ing data respectively needs to be kept at a fraction of that range since the cumulative error of data alignment and data measurement needs to stay < 10 cm. in figure 9 we sketch our workflow for the case of deviation analysis with respect to given terrestrial surveying. figure 10 shows some sample results obtained for a pipeline section of about 1500 m. the data has been recorded in september 2015 jointly with terranets bw (https://www.terranets-bw. de/en/) in baden württemberg. the terranets bw transmis- sion system has a length of approx. 2000 km and ten entry points directly connect with transmission systems of the grid operators open grid europe gmbh, gascade gastransport gmbh, fluxys tenp tso s.p.a., bayernets gmbh as well as open grid regional gmbh. “means of automatic change detection – in the radio- metric and geometric domain - we greatly reduce the amount of data requested for human investigation” > josef alois birchbauer, siemens ag austria research / development / technology

14 pipeline technology journal (a) (c) (b) (d) (e) figure 10: depth-of cover sample result on a 1500m pipeline section. (a) location of the test-site in google earth with the orthophoto as overlay, (b) qualitative impressions on the dtm data fidelity, (c) orthophoto with depth-of-cover color coding, (d) image section of (c) for better visibility of details, (e) elevation profile view due to of the 3d pipe-structure that needs to be inspected a birds-eye view is not suitable as opposed to pipeline moni- toring. furthermore the uav needs to get reasonably close to the pipe structure to get a sufficient data resolution for capturing details. this results in a more challenging flight operation. also an orthophoto is no longer a straight- forward representation. instead one has map the image data onto the pipeline shape, being either the real one or synthetic one. next one needs to unfold or unwrap the pipeline shape to a flattened structure for producing and orthophoto-like cylindrical mapping. we haven’t talked about capturing geometric defects so far. the reason is we do not believe that sub-millimeter accuracy is achiev- able from uav observations, whereas very prominent geometric defects like dents should be. again the question arises how to classify surface tex- tures or temperature distributions as being worthwhile reporting. while for temperature the answer is relatively simple, i.e. anything that shows a clear different local temperature distribution than its surrounding, texture analysis is far from trivial if you want to cover all types of defects that could happen on the surface. and not all surface changes are defects if you think for instance on dirt or bird droppings. a criterion that makes a surface change worth reporting is persistency. this is again where our change detection paradigm jumps in. if for several consecutive observations a surface change is persistent or is even getting extended we can conclude its worthiness of reporting without explicit classification and without the necessity to model or learn all kind of potential surface problems explicitly. conclusions in this work we presented various aspects of uas tech- nology with respect to pipeline monitoring and inspec- tion. in particular we highlighted change detection in the pipeline corridor, and presented depth-of-cover moni- toring as a specific instance of change detection setting challenging requirements on the measurement accuracy. we briefly provided an outlook to what can be done for above-ground pipelines, again following our paradigm of change detection instead of explicit modeling of all kinds of defects. in the earlier part of the paper we analyzed the dualism between uavs and helicopters. at the time of writing, the thinking should neither be pro-uas nor pro-helicopter; it should be pro-‘data analytics’ based on mobile sensors. instead helicopters and uas will complement each other in a phase of transition before regulations on uas will relaxing and get harmonized. autonomous (b-vlos) fly- ing – at least over sparsely populated/unpopulated areas – will become a common practice in the (near) future. glossary agl… dtm… easa… faa… above ground level in aviation a height measured with respect to the underlying ground surface. this is as opposed to altitude/elevation above mean sea level (amsl). digital terrain model a dtm represents the bare ground surface without any objects like plants and buildings. european aviation safety agency the easa is an agency of the eu with regulatory and executive tasks in the field of civilian aviation safety. federal aviation administration the faa is the national aviation authority of the us. as an agency of the united states department of transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of american civil aviation. gnss… global navigation satellite system icao… gnss is the standard generic term for satellite navigation systems that provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning with global coverage. this term includes e.g. the gps, glonass, galileo, beidou and other regional systems. the term gps is specific to the united states gnss system, the navstar global positioning system. international civil aviation organization the icao is a specialized agency of the un. it codifies the principles and techniques of international air navigation and fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth. lidar… light detection and ranging a surveying technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser light. lidar is popularly used as a technology to make high-resolution maps and is sometimes simply referred to as “laser scanning” or 23d scanning”. mtom… maximum take-off mass the mtom of an aircraft is the maximum weight at which it the pilot ist allowed to attempt to take off, due to structural or other limits. orthophoto rtk… sfm… an orthophoto or orthoimage is an aerial photograph geometrically corrected (“orthorectified”) such that the scale is uniform: the photo has the same lack of distortion as a map. unlike an uncorrected aerial photograph, an orthophoto can be used to measure true distances. real time kinematics a satellite navigation technique used to enhance the precision of position data derived from gnss. it uses measurements of the phase of the signal’s carrier wave, rather than the information content of the signal, and relies on a single reference station or interpolated virtual station to provide real-time corrections, providing up to centimeter-level accuracy. structure from motion sfm refers to the process of estimating three-dimensional structures from two-dimensional image sequences which may be coupled with local motion signals. vtol… vertical take-off and landing a vtol aircraft is one that can hover, take off, and land vertically. this classification includes fixed- wing aircraft as well as helicopters and other aircraft with powered rotors, such as tiltrotors. research / development / technology

asset management of high pressure installations: project graid - an innovation project to develop a robotics system for internal in- spection of buried pipework ian butt > premtech, uk wez little > synthotech, uk gary senior > pie, uk richard waine > national grid, uk abstract a robust asset management strategy is essential for installations that transport hazardous products, and the search for innovative solutions permits the operator to develop the best tools and techniques to address this need. national grid and its partner organizations are engaged in an exciting project that is addressing the challenge of how to inspect the complex, below-ground pipework existing at high pressure installations. the robotic platform will negotiate its way through complex pipework geometries and varying gas flows whilst withstanding extreme pressures of up to 100 barg. the robotic platform is intended to provide real-time data on the condition of high pressure underground assets not previously in-line inspected, allowing the operator to more effectively manage the asset life. national grid is working with three organizations to develop methods to accurately assess the condition of its pipework assets that cannot currently be inspected via traditional pipeline inspection gauges (pigs). the complexity of pipework at high pressure installations, combined with the extreme conditions within the gas network, presents a significant challenge for any robotic solution. project graid (gas robotic agile inspection device) commenced in january 2015 and will be completed in november 2018. stage 1 of the project has been completed, and this presentation describes the progress to date, project objecti- ves, technical strategy and the key activities to design, build and demonstrate its functionality.

18 pipeline technology journal asset management systems provide a framework for defin- ing and specifying what, why and when activities should be undertaken, including the linkages between asset manage- ment strategies and the overall objectives and plans for the entire organisation. it recognizes that there is diversity in asset type, condition, performance and business-criticality. asset, the increase in the probability of failure which indi- cates the end of life is avoided and the asset integrity is con- firmed or validated. when this process is repeated at regular intervals, the asset integrity is revalidated and the operation of the asset is confirmed as safe for a further period of time (figure 3). a key requirement in the asset management of major hazard infrastructure is integrity management. integrity means that the quality and condition of the asset is such that it is fit for purpose to meet operational requirements with an adequate safety margin. this means that the probability of failure must be low as reasonably practicable at all stages of the asset’s life cycle. management of integrity over the life cycle involves ensuring the correct level of integrity is established at design and construction stages, and then maintaining a level of integrity which ensures the pipeline is fit for purpose to meet operational requirements with an adequate safety margin. typically, the change in the probability of failure of an asset varies throughout its life is described by the bathtub curve (figure 2): figure 2: probability of failure vs time in considering high pressure gas assets, the potential for a high probability of failure at the start of life is removed by the pre-commissioning pressure test, which removes materi- al, construction and fabrication defects and establishes a low probability of failure as the asset goes into operation. the probability of failure is then controlled throughout the operating life by inspection and maintenance activities. in the event that the asset is subject to degradation due to time and or duty, the probability of failure will eventually increase with time that signals the end of life. however, where the integrity management process includes identification of damage, inspection to characterize and size defects caused by damage, assessment of detected defects and repair of any defects which threaten the integrity of the figure 3: inspection intervals the primary activity in integrity management during oper- ation, particularly as assets age, is inspection and defect assessment. for pipelines, inspection is carried out by regular inline inspection. the inspection technology applied is robust and mature, and the detection of damage features and accurate sizing of these is established. the results of an in line inspection run provide defect locations and sizes, and assessment methods are applied to determine whether the defect is acceptable or requires repair. as repair is disruptive and requires planning to minimize operational disruption, defects that are currently acceptable but may increase in size are identified and the timescale for re-inspection is established so that potential growth of the defects can be monitored. the simplest inspection and maintenance philosophies are those in which activities are carried out at fixed intervals based on time or duty. in the last 30 years, significant effort has been directed to development and implementation of condition and risk based philosophies in the oil and gas industry. the main drivers are to ensure cost effective and efficient inspection and maintenance, that targets intrusive maintenance and inspection and repair activities at assets which require this. condition based approaches are applied to plant and equipment in which changes in condition can be monitored, while risk based approaches are applied to assets for which causes of failure are known, data related to frequency and consequences of failure exist allowing failure to be predicted. condition and risk based approaches are ap- plied to specific assets, and so good asset records including, type/design, age functionality and operating regime, as well as condition monitoring, inspection and maintenance his- research / development / technology

20 pipeline technology journal figuration will be built in order to trial the robot within a high pressure environment, and before it is trialed on a live site. etry similar to that it will encounter on the sites whilst in a pressurised environment. there are three clear solutions which will be enabled by solving the current challenge ng has with its asset management strat- egy for below ground pipework at high pressure installations: using knowledge gained during the site design changes in stage 2 future site design requirements will be identified and reported. all of the preceding work at this point will be used to determine the inspection carbon footprint. 1. repair and maintenance of critical assets will be better targeted allowing for a reduction in unnecessary exca- vations. 2. the life of assets will be extended due to an accurate understanding of condition ensuring that premature replacement will be prevented. 3. the likelihood of a high pressure release will be signifi- cantly reduced. the project is divided into 5 stages: stage 1 – solution development: jan 2015 – oct 2015 stage 1 of the design process involved the development of 3d computational models by synthotech in accordance with the initial design scope and specifications. these 3d compu- tational models will then be printed using a technique known as ‘rapid prototyping’ that uses powders and plastic print 3d space models. these space models are used to test first principles of concept design and will be developed further during stage 2. simultaneously, premtech will design and a prototype insertion and extraction device. its design must be specific to the robot proposed by synthotech, therefore a close working relationship between premtech and syntho- tech is required. it will be designed and appraised in accor- dance with relevant nggt design codes. site surveys and laser scan profiling (see appendix 1 for details) will be carried out to support the data taken from as- built drawing records of each site. production of 3d digital models of the chosen live trial sites will be produced from this data for numerous uses later in the project. stage 2 – development testing: oct 2015 – sept 2016 this phase will see the development of the 3d space models with conversion to metallic and plastic components as well as the addition of bespoke electronic components (circuits and motors) drive mechanisms (gear boxes), software devel- opment, and power. using the 3d trial site models, insertion and extraction points selection will take place early in this stage to allow site design changes to be carried out and reported. the selection of the insertion and extraction points will also allow robot route selection and determination, the extent of which will be limited by its design parameters and illustrated on a ‘go / no-go’ style drawing. a large scale test assembly for field trials will be developed to allow the robot to be tested through pipework with geom- stage 3 – field trials: sept 2016 – apr 2018 stage 3 relates to the detailed process of testing the design and functionality of the robot and is essentially broken into specific stages: 1. offline testing – to be carried out on bespoke simula- tion test rig. this will be carried out on the specifically developed simulation rig, to provide a safe testing facility to vali- date the robot’s ability to carry out tasks and determine improvements in design related to function or perfor- mance prior to commencing any ‘live’ trials. 2. online testing – to be carried out on an installation under ‘live gas’ conditions. this will be carried out under live gas conditions on selected nggt agis during summer outage. the pur- pose of these trials will be to validate the design and performance of the robot in the ‘real world’ and allow for refinement of designs and processes for inspection of unpigged sections of the agi. at the end of stage 3, analysis of measurement and inspec- tion data obtained during the field trials will take place. it is proposed that condition assessment algorithms will be developed to allow confidence estimations to be made on the condition of pipework that is unable to be accessed by the robot. data will also be used to establish a site condition index and condition assessment criteria. stage 4 – data analysis apr 2018 – sept 2018 stage 4 is focused on the further development of the robotic platform into a pre- commercially viable solution and the validation of data generated during the complex testing during stage 3. the data validation will be carried out independently of synthotech and premtech, by pie, in order to ensure third party assurance. stage 4 may require further online field trials on an agi, but this will be purely to refine data capture results to allow the creation of algorithms to within an agreed standard deviation so that data collected can provide an accurate indication of the asset condition. from a product validation perspective all online tests will be used as an opportunity to train the agreed process owner, which will be the national grid pipeline maintenance centre (pmc). research / development / technology

22 pipeline technology journal of the flow and include the effects of fluid compressibility. premtech has been primarily involved in the creation of accu- rate 3d models of the three online trial sites and the conceptual design of the offline test facility and launch and receive vessel. see figures 5 and 6. by using a combination of laser scanning and original design documents, with the use of component / pattern recognition software (see figure 7) to develop component and material in- formation (see figure 8), they are creating accurate 3d computer models of the three online trial sites. figure 6: 3d model example (complex) figure 5: 3d model example (simple) figure 7: component recognition software figure 8: component / materials details research / development / technology

24 pipeline technology journal leica gs15 gnss receiver leica gs15 gnss (global navigation satellite system) is a satellite system that is used to precisely locate the geographic lo- cation of a user’s receiver anywhere in the world. satellite based navigation systems use triangulation to location the receiver, through calculations involving information from a number of different satellites. the gs15 will generally be set up just outside the entrance to a site or if the site has a datum point it can be po- sitioned there to find its exact location. this will allow the trans- formation of all coordinates measured on site to reference british ordnance survey national grid coordinate system and datum. magnetic target plates to allow accurate geo-referencing of scans, the surveyor will strategically position magnetic target plates around the site either on the security fence (if metallic) or on any existing infrastructures such as pipework or supports. the magnetic target plates will be positioned in the areas that are to be 3d laser scanned. generally a larger site will have between 6 – 12 targets. these target locations can be altered if required. to correctly geo-reference each scan at least three targets have to be in the line of sight of the scanner. laser safety lasers in some cases can be harmful, however the lasers used in this laser scanning process are safe under all conditions of normal use and are not dangerous to anyone or anything. unless otherwise stated the internal features of buildings will not be laser scanned. all scanning will be limited to the sites external environment unless otherwise stated by the designer. calibration all laser scanning equipment and measuring equipment should be fully calibrated before any laser scanning can commence. the equipment should be fully calibrated as per the manufacturers manufacturing recommendations and servicing agreements. the surveyor shall guarantee the calibration of each piece of equipment and shall provide copies of relevant certifica- tion to the designer. under no circumstances shall equip- ment that does not have a current calibration certificate be taken to site and used. limitations scans require a direct line of sight between the scanner and the object of interest. any unwanted items should be removed from the area of interest as the scan will pick them up.the quality of the scan depends on the reflectivity of the objects in the survey area. specific surfaces and the angle of incidence can affect the quality of the scan. and also any dark surfaces will not reflect the laser as well as lighter surfaces and with transparent objects the laser will travel straight through. trained survey personnel weather a suitably qualified and experienced engineering surveyor shall oversee all aspects of the laser scanning and data processing procedures. to maintain the highest levels of quality the survey- or should be a full member of the royal institution of char- tered surveyors (rics), chartered institute of civil engineering surveyors (ices), or of equivalent professional status and / or experience. both the rics and ices have minimum competent standards for full membership as well as a continuous profes- sional development structure that requires all members to be up to date with developments in best practice. details of these standards can be found on the appropriate web site. features to be scanned the following is a list of key features that should be recorded during the laser scan of a gas site: • • • • • • • • gas pipework, equipment and components buildings and structures security fence and egress gates roads, ducting and kerbing & drainage civil bases ground levels masts, gantries, overhead structures all signs / posts the quality of the scan will be affect by poor weather such as rain and snow as these types of weather produce unwanted noise that the scan will pick up. it is recommend that the weath- er should be checked before going to site and if it was to rain or snow heavily during a scan, the scan should be suspended. seasons generally scans will take place between the hours 09:00 and 17:00. during winter month’s theses hours will not be possible and also visibility will generally be poorer than in spring and summer. for scans to be of a good quality, a bright day is required as the duller / darker the day the poor- er the quality of the scan. it should be noted that the limitations above can be eliminate by proven field techniques combined with the use of sophisti- cated point cloud processing software. shadows direct line of sight is required to all survey areas to create a complete point cloud. where this is hampered by objects ob- scuring the survey area ‘survey shadows’ are created. shadows will be minimised by utilising multiple survey points as well as alternating high and low setups. some shadowing is inevitable but by applying best practice it will be reduced to a minimum. research / development / technology

hot tapping and product theft on pipelines: a way to detect and locate these spots during normal operationrene landstorfer > gottsberg leak detection gmbh & co. kg, germanyabstractabout 10 years ago, theft on pipelines had been a crime that was taking place in only a few regions far away from eu-rope. within the last years this problem approaches nearly every country faster and faster. in 2013 there had been the first big incident of this kind in germany. a 12” product line had been tapped, product had been stolen and 5000 m³ of soil had been polluted. still this isn’t common practice here in germany, but it starts to become so.in other countries the situation is much worse. nigeria for example is losing almost 15 % of its oil production through theft on pipelines. at current prices this would mean a financial loss of almost 3 billion $ per year. another example for the increase of vandalism is mexico where an incline of up to 58% of registered pipeline taps took place in the first quarter of this year compared to last year`s first quartertoday the criminals are working very sophisticated with a lot of experience and professional equipment, so that there occurs for example no big pressure wave that can be detected by pipeline monitoring systems. also the holes they drill are so small, they cannot be detected with online leak detection systems. even the amount of product removed is small enough to not be detected by flow measurement from input to output of the pipeline.one of the few ways to detect and locate spots where hot tapping and theft is taking place are leak detection pigs like the ones from gottsberg leak detection. they are directly passing the actual leak and therefor can detect very small holes in the pipe wall. this would also be the benefit of these tools when the operator is not expecting the event of thievery along their pipeline.defects along the pipeline that are too small to be detected with metal loss or crack detection pigs can lead leaks that then will also not be recognized through permanent monitoring technologies. these are without exception not capable of finding small leaks of less than a few hundred liters per hour leak rate.the gottsberg tools however have a certification from the german tüv for a smallest detectable leak rate of 6.8 liters/hour at 6 bar, which corresponds to a drilling hole of around 0.3 mm. additionally the gottsberg tools are the only intelligent pigging devices in the world with an atex certification for zone 0. this means an immense simplifica-tion when it comes to handling and regulations for the use of the pigs in explosive atmospheres.the presentation will give an overview on the world wide thievery of product out of pipelines and its development in the past and future. using the example of the gottsberg leak detection tools, different approaches in detecting and locating these leaks during normal pipeline operation will be presented.

28 pipeline technology journal solutions for detection there have been a variety of ways in which these hot taps have been discovered, which can vary from specialist pipe- line monitoring technology to a member of the general public discovering it while walking their dog. in worst cases the criminals abandon the place where they have drilled the pipeline even without shutting off the gen- erated leak and leave it spilling to the surrounding. that of course can lead to immense environmental pollution, loss of product and a big damage to the operator’s image even though this “accident” is not the operator’s fault. this all is the reason why pipeline companies have to take great endeavors to make their lines safe and to detect hot tapping spots as early as possible. there are technological ways to find these spots already when they are created. for example optical fibers can be installed along a pipeline and can detect the vibrations or sound from drilling into the pipe wall or even digging next to it. this tech- nology can be a solution for future pipelines that still have to be built, but for financial reasons it is hard to be installed on al- ready existing pipelines that are buried. also it is very easy to disable these systems by just destroying or cutting the fiber. in this case visual arial or overground inspection is possible or inline tools are used to detect the noise produced by the leak. the holes drilled into the pipeline are in most cases very small, so that they cannot be detected by any online monitoring system. it is common that thieves try to stay below the threshold of these technology to not being detected. besides the threshold rises with the size of the pipeline and that makes it possible to siphon relatively big amounts of product without being discovered. gottsberg leak detection is developing and producing very sophisticated leak detection pigs that are capable of detecting smallest leaks or siphons down to a leak rate of less than 10 liters per hour. this is way below the amount that would be lucrative for oil theft. still there is one challenge to be accepted. the tool only works when the leak is actually open. only then it produces the noise that can be recognized by the device. the noise arises from cavitation that occurs when a pressurized liquid expands to a vicinity with lower pressure. gottsberg has recently done some series of tests to evaluate the working principle for the case that the pipeline is not leaking into the environment around the pipeline but instead into a long hose attached to the actual leak. as sound travels very good in liquids, the pressure difference producing the cavitation can also be far away from the actual hole in the pipe wall and therefore be detected reliably with the gld tool. there are different ways to solve the problem with theft that can only be detected when it effectively is in use. first one would be to do runs very frequently and especially at the time when the theft is suspected to take place. as the gottsberg tool is very easy in handling, it takes not more effort to run the tool than to do a cleaning run. that is why it is no problem to repeat a run as soon as the tool has finished the last one. also it would be possible to run more than one tool and start a new one at certain intervals for example. the second way would be to place the tool in standby into the launching trap and then start the run when the theft is taking place. that can for example be done by time when the oper- ator knows that they are tapping during a certain time of the day, but also when for example the scada system recognizes discrepancies in flow or pressure. in that case the tool is just used to pinpoint the spot where product loss takes place. therefor the gottsberg engineers have developed a new and very precise way to locate anomalies along the pipeline. a com- bination of odometer wheels with speed and distance measure- ment, an imu and the pipe tally lead to an accuracy of 2 – 3m during the first run. this is way below the precision that compa- rable tools can achieve. in the past, gottsberg has detected and located several cases where illegal connections had been fitted to pipelines and product had been stolen. therefor some of our customers rely on the gottsberg tools in these cases. figure 4: leak detection pig in pipeline gottsberg leak detection pig gld 202 the gld 202 is not only for the detection of product theft but also for any other leakage detection and can be used as part of an comprehensive pipeline monitoring especially because it is one of the few systems capable of detecting even the smallest leaks. some of the gottsberg customers run their tools once a week but, depending on the length of the line, the runtime and the needs of the customer, the devices can be used much more frequently. research / development / technology

following is another screenshot from the gld700 evaluation software (figure 8). this especially developed software can largely work automated and will for example search for the interesting points in the run to list them for the analysis of the operators personnel. included is also a report function to gener- ate the run reports directly in the software. these reports can be delivered and are accepted by all german authorities. 30 pipeline technology journal sonogram window. it shows all noises from engines running and mechanically moving parts of the station. the two green vertical lines in the middle of the upper so- nogram part are the sounds of the bypass gate valves doors closing and afterwards opening while the pig is lying in the bypass waiting for the pressure to be raised. this sound has its origin in the turbulences of the liquid running around the valve doors. after the pig has left the bypass again a small bright line can be seen in the upper part. this is from another marker showing that the tool has passed the station. then the noises from the pumping station are getting quiet while the tool is continuing its detection run. another advantage is that the tool itself can be mounted to different chassis to make it suitable for different pipe diame- ters without the need for a complete new tool for every pipeline size. many of the gld customers have chosen to buy the system and use it on their own. unlike other leak detection pigs it is so easy to use and so reliable that, after a few days of training by the gottsberg engineers, the custom- er can run the tool and do the data evaluation on their own. location of the defects is already done during the run in com- bination with a gis. with their own electronic markers gld 501 and the ability to use virtual markers the tools are able to im- prove the accuracy know from classic odometers significantly. figure 7: gld chassis gld 303 – 400, 500, 750 figure 8: gld software combined with gis research / development / technology

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34 pipeline technology journal welcome to the 12th pipeline technology conference europe’s biggest pipeline conference and exhibition preview   600+ delegates 60+ exhibitors   50+ different nations delegations from 50+ differ- ent pipeline operators conferences / seminars / exhibitions

36 pipeline technology journal core statements from ptc 2016 asle venas, global director pipelines at the technical service provider dnv gl “the ptc conference has become the biggest and most impor- tant pipeline conference in europe. i have long time missed a big pipeline event in europe that could compete with ipc in calgary and ibp in rio”. fouad mohamed, construction enginner at kuwait oil company “this is my 1st time in the pipeline technology conference. i think it’s a very good opportunity to meet people and share experience and i think i will attend it every year. it is very use- ful to see other business and technology partners. it is really a good gain for everybody”. do you agree with these statements? conferences / seminars / exhibitions

. 2 0 1 7 7 ) 1 0 c 2 r i n e : 3 1 m a s o f p t r d e l e g a t e i o n d e a d l c o u n t f o a t r t i a l d i s r e g i s c ( s p e www.pipeline-conference.com/seminars seminars in-line inspection of onshore and offshore pipelines geohazards and geotechnics in onshore and offshore pipeline engineering both on 5-6 may 2017 estrel berlin berlin, germany pipeline technology conference events pipeline technology conference 2010 organized by euro institute for information and technology transfer

12th pipeline technology conference 02-04 may 2017, estrel convention center, berlin, germany europe’s leading conference and exhibition on new pipeline technologies, taking place at the estrel berlin, berlin, germany www.pipeline-conference.com ptj covers reports about research, industry and practice, presentation of innovative concepts and technologies abd special reports about pipeline safety. ptj will be sent to more than 50,000 international decision makers and experts of the pipeline industry. next issue: march 2017 www.pipeline-journal.net pipeline - pipe - sewer - technology 17-19 september 2017, cairo, egypt conference & exhibition on oil, gas, water and waste water transportation in africa and middle east bonus distribution at ptj partner events pipeline pigging and integrity management 27-02 - 02.03.2017 houston, texas offshore pipeline technology conference 28.02 - 02.03.2017 amsterdam, the netherlands gastech conference and exhibition 04-07 april 2017 tokyo, japan 12th pipeline technology conference (ptc) 02-04 may 2017 berlin, germany pipeline - pipe - sewer - technology (ppst) 17-19 september 2017 cairo, egypt