SmartPipe dream for Norway

A group of Norwegian companies and a research organisation have launched an initiative to monitor the status of seabed oil and gas pipes and act as an environmental watchdog.

SICOM, Force Technology, CorrOcean and Thermotite are working with SINTEF (The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research at the Norwegian Institute of Technology) on the project. The study has won NOK 41 million (£3.5 million) backing from oil and gas companies and the Research Council of Norway.

The three-year interdisciplinary project is the first phase of a major programme that the project partners have called “SmartPipe”. This will be a complete monitoring system that gathers and processes data from pipelines on the seabed.

SmartPipe will transmit data about pipeline leak risk factors - mechanical loads, rate of corrosion and remaining wall thickness, among others - from the ocean bed. The system will also send up information about flow conditions in the pipelines, ensuring that the transport capacity of the pipelines is maintained at the highest possible level.