SGS was awarded a contract to provide comprehensive inspection and testing services for about 100 underground road crossings of over 1000 pipelines, varying in diameter from 1" to 42'', at the Kuwait Petroleum Europort (KPE) in May 2011.

In order to assess the condition around and in the buried parts and to help the client prioritize their maintenance and mitigate risks of leakages, SGS Industrial Services is performing extensive Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Services, including Visual Inspection, Ultrasonic Testing, Guided Wave Inspection and Radiographic Testing as well as providing Project Management Services.

With Visual Inspection, SGS will inspect the road crossings of pipelines for poor welding, surface defects, corrosion pits, degradation, blockages and foreign material by applying specialized equipment, which penetrates into obscure places.

In order to measure the wall thickness of underground pipelines SGS's team of experts conducts Ultrasonic Testing. Skilled SGS operators can identify the location and size of imperfections in the wall thickness of the material by sending a pulsed beam of high-frequency ultrasound from a handheld transducer, which is placed upon the surface of the pipeline road crossings.

Having extensive experience and expertise in projects of this kind, SGS will apply Guided Wave Inspection, also called Long-Range Ultrasonic Testing (LRUT), and Radiographic Testing to assess the condition and reliability of the piping in an effective way and detect any discontinuities at an early stage.

In addition, SGS will support the client with its complex requirements with Project Management Services in terms of coordination of other contractors for insulation and civil works.

Applying its first-rate experience and competence, SGS helps the client to evaluate the condition of its underground road crossings of refinery pipelines and makes suggestions for their maintenance, in order to ensure that defects and discontinuities will be detected before they reach a critical size and consequently result in severe damage and expensive corrective actions.

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