This 6'' 9.08 Km shale gas pipeline is located in the mountains of Southwest of China, under the working condition of 78 bar(designed pressure); 52 bar(launch) and 51 bar(receive), the daily capacity of this line is 2.83 to 3.18MMcfd.
The client originally intended to run MFL pigs for this pipeline; however, recurring incidents of caliper pig stuck during each geometric inspection. This is attributed to suboptimal construction practices during the early phases of pipeline development, where certain aspects deviated from standard specifications, such as reinforced weld and 1.5D bends. Additionally, some sections of the pipeline exhibit multiple internal diameters. Obviously, this is a typical “unpiggable” pipeline for MFL.

According to historical pigging event of this line, the cleaning pig & ILI tool was supposed to be customized :
1）The R&D team has optimized the structural design, enabling the cleaning pig & ILI tool to accommodate a 20% deformation in the pipeline during inspection.
2）Run the customized cleaning pig before ILI, and array the PIGPROX Intelligent Pig Tracking Tools on each high risk pig stuck position to track the pig’s moving condition real time.
3）The Pig-receive group carefully recorded the pressure of pipeline in order to identify pig’s moving situation and adjust the gas flow accordingly.

PIGPROX innovative electromagnetic eddy current ILI tool, has the advantages of highly integrated, light weight, small in size and excellent through capacity which minimums the risk of pig stuck. After 2.5h running, the ILI tool received successfully with the full integrated data that can show the signal of features & defects clearly.
It is the first time of the line having a successful ILI !