Oil and Gas Production Systems

This chapter focuses on offshore oil and gas production, where the materials corrosion problems are most severe. Oil and gas production (upstream) systems encompass various sub-systems, production conditions, and materials corrosion modes. Although probabilistic assessments have been performed in a risk-based framework in Europe, in the U.S. and elsewhere, materials are designed within a prescriptive regulatory framework, governed by standards and fitness for service testing/assessments. Even when probabilistic assessments are performed, they are based on aggregate statistics, such as failure statistics of components, and not on corrosion models. In this chapter, a probabilistic framework for materials performance in production systems is presented using Bayesian networks that incorporate corrosion and environmentally assisted cracking models. The focus will be on environmentally assisted cracking of upstream metallic materials.