by Nefarious » Thu 24 Sep 2009, 20:06:37
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kiwichick', 'n')efarious; just curious
can you give us any more details on what you've been doing?
I work for one of the largest if not the largest abrasive blasting and coatings company that caters solely to the offshore oil industry in the GoM.
When you erect a steel platform in a salt water environment,you are placing it in one of the worse possible environments for it's longevity.
With a
perfect coating on the steel you have about a 7 year coating life, before the coatings have broken down enough to no longer provide sufficient protection from corrosion.On average you get a 4 to 5 year coating protection, then you have to go back and blast and re-coat again.
Two years ago we were at our yearly review with one of our largest customers. They surveyed their platforms and came up with a figure of 10 million square feet of structure and piping that needed to be addressed (blasted and coated). Us and the other contract companies that are addressing it are averaging around 900,000 square feet a year. That means we can get right under half of that 10 million square feet done before we would have to start over at the beginning again.Not to mention that, that 10 million square feet is not a static number each year that number grows because rust grows and in the salt water environment it grows fast.
You also have to take into consideration that corrosion control is a cost overhead and it is very expensive to do on offshore production platforms. Some companies will hold off maintenance in structural integrity until it becomes a serious problem and MMS steps in and starts fining them until it gets addressed. In some severe cases MMS will shut the platform in if there is serious corrosion on production piping that might lead to a release and environmental damage until it is repaired. (Although that is very rare, they usually start to do something when the fines start adding up)