Method and Application of Pipeline Integrity Management Performance Evaluation

Pipeline integrity management has been highly admitted by the international pipeline industry as its nature of proactive prevention. And since it was introduced into China, it has been widely favored by Chinese oil and gas pipeline operators. With more than 10 years’ continuous absorption, practice and technical innovation, China has achieved some progress in key technologies such as risk assessment, integrity evaluation and maintenance. However, it is undeniable that there is still a gap between domestic technology and the international advanced technology. In addition, the integrity management level of different pipeline enterprises in China varies. As a result, it is indispensable and advisable to set up a scientific management thinking of continuous improvement and to establish a long-term effective management mechanism. As the last step in the integrity management cycle, performance evaluation is the key to realize the improvement of integrity management level constantly by cycle. In this paper a performance evaluation method is established based on implementation process and management effect of integrity management. On account of requirements of current documents and standards, specific scoring rules concerning integrity management are proposed, and an evaluation tool is developed accordingly. With application of developed evaluation method and tool, the performance of a certain pipeline operator in a certain management period is evaluated, and problems and deficiencies have been identified during the management process, thus measures and suggestions for improvement given specifically. In the end, it is suggested this performance evaluation method be promoted and applied to realize its function of feedback and improvement.