Webinar: Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing for Pipelines

Sponsored by: ILF

Focused on:

    Date: 26th May

    Days old: 5004

    Time: London 2PM / New York 9AM

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    How fiber optic cables can enhance pipeline safety and secur

    Pipelines are efficient, highly reliable and safe means of transportation. However, although the number of leaks could be reduced since the early 70's of the last century due to improved design, material and maintenance procedures, leaks still appear. Most of these are originated by external causes such as digging excavators or slope movements and can not be prevented by right of way surveillance (walking, driving, flying along the route). Large parts of this monitoring gap can be closed by fiber optic sensing technologies. With a maximum active sensor length of up to 30 kilometer and local resolution down to one meter these sensors are apt to detect various external leak causes and actual leak locations by sensing temperature, strain and vibrations and even sound. After a short introduction to the technical approaches for distributed fiber optic sensing, an overview on pipeline related applications in the field of leakage detection, third party activity monitoring, ground movement detection and integrity monitoring will be presented. Finally some insight to the engineering aspects of fiber optic sensing applications will be provided.

    Presented by

    Tobias Walk,

    Director for Electrical Engineering, ILF

    Division Director for e. Engineering, Automation & IT-Systems As a native German, Tobias Walk studied Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Technical University in Munich with special focus on Automation and Control Systems. In 1996 he received his Diploma and he started 1997 to work as project engineer for ILF Consulting Engineers within the Oil & Gas market. Over the past 13 years, he has held a number of positions of increasing responsibility within ILF. Since 2008 he is the ILF Director for Electrical Engineering, Automation and IT-Systems. Furthermore, since end of 2009 he is acting as Corporate Director for the ILF Russia Oil & Gas activities. He has been deeply involved as owners engineer within the design and commissioning of various international pipeline projects (amongst others: BTC Crude Oil Pipeline, ADCOP Habshan - Fujairah Pipeline, Bourgas-Alexandroupolis Crude Oil Pipeline, ESPO Pipeline, Revamp of Janaf Crude Oil Pipeline) during the last decade. Within these projects he was also responsible for the design of various process control and safety systems which included the Pipeline Integrity Monitoring System and Leak Detection System as well as the necessary Telecommunication System.

    Jochen Frings,

    Lead Engineer, ILF

    Lead Engineer Automation, Telecommunication & IT Jochen Frings studied Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in 1993. After doing intense research on design and planning methodology for multimedia communication networks at the university's Institute for Communication Networks, he switched to Siemens AG in 2000. There he was responsible for business case studies, technology consulting and network planning projects as a Senior Consultant and Project Manager, as well as for service product management and innovation management. In 2008 Jochen joined ILF Consulting Engineers. Since then he is involved in FEED, tendering and vendor vetting phases for water and gas transmission pipelines as well as gas storages in the roles of a telecommunication and SCADA expert and as lead engineer for the instrumentation, control and telecommunication discipline.

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    Key Learning Objectives

    • 50% of pipeline leaks are caused by 3rd party activities and ground movements
    • Standard optical waveguides (fibers) are sensitive for temperature, strain, vibration and sound along their full length up to 30km.
    • Safety and security of pipelines can be enhanced with distributed fiber optic sensing applications for detection of leaks, 3rd party activity, ground movement, structure integrity, fire detection, pipeline integrity and many more
    • Careful vendor selection as well as engineering of cable construction, position and laying together with system integration are key for reliable measurements.

    Audience

    • Head of Corporate Research K-CPR - KROHNE Messtechnik GmbH
    • Director for subsea and pipelines - Ramboll Oil & Gas
    • Mechanical Head of Department - Ranhill Worley Sdn Bhd
    • Managing Director - Nextel Global Solutions Ltd
    • O&M Director - InterGen
    • Managing Director - Relentech Specialists LimiteD