Aiming at the prevention and control of corrosion in oil and gas pipelines, a smart coating with a dual functionality was synthesised by loading zinc oxide (ZnO) as the corrosion inhibitor into halloysite nanotubes (HNT). The HNT@ZnO nanocomposites were synthesised with the absence and presence of diethylene glycol (DEG) to observe the effects on its chemical and morphological structure. The mass ratio of the HNT to ZnO was also modified (1:0.5 ratio, 1:1 ratio and 1:1.5 ratio) to analyse the release rate of ZnO from its nanocontainers under different pH environments. The study also investigated the influence of ZnO in inhibiting corrosion through immersion test. A novel coating with embedded HNT@ZnO nanoparticles was formulated. The system was characterised for its chemical compositions using appropriate techniques such as the FTIR spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. The release characteristics of the ZnO from the HNT@ZnO was determined by a UV-Vis spectrophotometer at a wavelength of 367 nm. The experimental results showed that an increase amount of ZnO would be superior in synthesising a smart coating used in the oil and gas industry, where up to 76% of the constituents of the HNT are released from its lumen. The sample with the highest content of zinc has also been observed to have the least amount of deposited corrosion on its total tested surface area (62%) opposed to a pure epoxy coating with no zinc oxide (97%).