Storage and transport of crude oil, petroleum and petrochemical products depends on systems of marine terminal tank farms distributed all over the world. Partially complex pipeline systems connecting marine terminals to ship berthing off-load points often run along the jetty. Many are at an advanced age and not designed for any sort of internal inspection or „intelligent pigging“. As a result, achieving a high resolution in-line inspection (ILI) often poses some interesting challenges.

The operator of a major crude oil import terminal and storage tank farm had to inspect a 24" pipeline system running between the depot main manifold and the end of the jetty. Since commission no permanent pig traps are installed and an external heating system is attached to the pipeline to be able to discharge tankers with heavy crude. Due to vary circumstances the ILI of this pipeline system was done in a bi-directional application.

This presentation describes the preparation and testing of the used inspection tools and the operational procedure and experience to inspect such pipeline systems using high resolution in-line inspection tools.