Pigs in the pipes

The glamorous world of international espionage isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when someone mentions the inspection of oil and gas pipelines. But the tools used to measure the inside of pipes, known as pipeline inspection gauges or pigs, have long been synonymous with James Bond films.

In fact, pigs have featured in three Bond films to date. The British Secret Service officer can be seen disabling a pig in Diamonds are Forever in order to escape a pipeline; a pig was used to transport someone across the Iron Curtain in The Living Daylights; and another was used to carry a nuclear weapon through a pipeline in The World is Not Enough.

These tools were originally developed to remove deposits that could obstruct flow through a pipeline, but in 1961 Shell Development demonstrated that a self-contained electronic instrument could travel through a pipeline aboard a pig while measuring and recording wall thickness. And, as a result of further advances in technology, pigs are today more intelligent than ever.