TOPIC CATEGORIES
Topic 1: Management of natural threats associated with the design and construction of transmission pipelines
- Selection and characterization of pipeline routes: state-of-the-art methods with remote sensing such as optical images, Radar images, LiDAR.
- Special considerations for mountainous terrains.
- Design and installation of special pipeline crossings: open-ditch river crossings, trenchless crossings and fluvial structures, road crossings, passage through areas susceptible to slope instability and through environmentally sensitive areas.
- Effects of climate variability on design and construction of pipelines.
- Design and construction of slope stabilization and erosion control works: new technologies and alternative solutions.
- Definition during the design stage of geohazard monitoring systems and their installation during construction.
- Examples of solutions to challenges due to environmental and social conditions.
- Risk assessment and contingency management in the design and construction of pipelines.
- Management of geohazards in transmission systems other than hydrocarbons.
- Considerations for pipeline threats of anthropic origin.
- Special cases of pipeline geohazard management in design and construction.
- Cases of parallelism with coexistence and interference with other linear or specific infrastructures.
- Analysis of design and construction cases.
Topic 2: Analysis and evaluation of risks due to geohazards and their planning in pipeline integrity management
Considerations on pipeline geohazard risks:
- Characterization of pipeline geohazards using background information from design, construction, operation, maintenance, and integrity, and their impact on risk management.
- Triggering agents (e.g., rainfall, earthquakes) in geotechnical and hydrotechnical processes.
- Geomorphological environment processes such as inventory, susceptibility zoning, and geohazard identification.
- Admissible thresholds for critical variables (e.g., rainfall thresholds, pipe deformations, relative displacements, seismic and volcanic activity, third-party damage).
- Risk management due to technological accidents (NATECH).
- The interaction with third parties and its combined effects with Geohazards.
Implementation of decision-making processes in pipeline integrity management planning:
- Strategies for data collection, capture, preparation, and management.
- Multidisciplinary analysis of integrity threat interaction and their consequences compared with broadly acceptable, ALARP, and non-tolerable risks.
- Risk analysis, criteria, and evaluation methodologies and lessons learned (i.e., probability of occurrence of Geohazards, vulnerability of the pipeline, effectiveness of mitigation and resistance, analysis of consequences including spill simulation).
- Development of integrity plans and prioritization based on multidisciplinary analysis.
- Roadmap planning and implementation of digital transformation technologies.
Topic 3: Implementation of geohazard monitoring and mitigation, and integrity performance management
Covers the application of monitoring, mitigation actions and lessons learned in the management of geohazards.
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Application of technologies for monitoring geohazards in pipelines related to automated or manual techniques, such as:
- In-Line Inspection (e.g., inertial, geometric, corrosion).
- Geotechnical instrumentation (inclinometers, piezometers, extensometers, topographical control).
- Remote sensing (satellite monitoring, multispectral imaging, LiDAR, radar).
- Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), drones.
- Topography, fiber optics, among others.
- Proposals for the application of state-of-the-art monitoring methods such as virtual reality, predictive models, early warning systems, artificial intelligence (AI).
- Practical management cases of specific monitoring techniques including the integration and analysis of results, operational intervention, and correlations with expected time of interventions.
- Third-party damage cases that have activated geohazards affecting the integrity of pipelines.
- Practical cases of occurrence of unforced errors in the development of monitoring due to inadequate systems, invalid readings, among others.
- Conventional or innovative geotechnical and hydrotechnical repair or mitigation solutions to maintain pipeline integrity.
- Lessons learned on the processes of mitigation, monitoring, and management of pipeline geohazards.