FRP Materials in Oil and Gas Industry: New Challenge Highlighted

Abstract Lately, the oil and gas industry has been always exploring and examining new materials that has superior properties that work efficiently under severe conditions. Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic (FRP) is one of those materials that exhibit good corrosion resistance and possess powerful properties. However, FRP may encounter some substantial challenges through certain applications. This paper will highlight the failure of a unique FRP-made internal component in a condensate tank as part of a steam generation process. Some oil traces were reported in certain equipment downstream of a condensate return tank in a steam generation plant. The tank was taken out of service and inspected internally. The Corrugated Plates Interceptor (CPI) pack, one of the tank's essential internals that is made of an FRP material, was found to be covered with a dark sludge layer, partially distorted and becoming very crunchy. A root cause analysis was conducted to list all the possible sources of the CPI pack failure. All the equipment documents were reviewed and the properties of the FRP material of the CPI pack was studied. The CPI pack in the condensate return tank was made from a cast Laminate Isophthalic Resin, which is an FRP material that is selected due to its chemical and mechanical properties. This CPI pack was found to be covered with dark sludge deposits. Some of the corrugated plates were either compressed or crumbled and the pack was distorted with a considerable angle from its original position. The review of the tank operating conditions showed that the temperature of the influent entering the tank was ranging from 70 – 95 °C. Simultaneously, after studying the FRP properties, it was noted that the maximum allowed heat distortion temperature of the CPI pack material is 100 °C, which is only 5 °C higher than the highest temperature of the inlet fluid. This marginal difference was found to be not enough for the FRP to withstand such service. Hence, the FRP material of the CPI pack was found to be inadequate for very high temperatures and shall be replaced with a more heat-resistant material. Moreover, the sludge layer on the CPI pack was attributed to the insufficient cleaning of the sludge inside the tank. This research sheds light on one of the challenges of using FRP materials in high temperature applications. This may grab the attention on a weakness of FRP materials that may need to be furtherly considered and improved in the future. In the case analyzed in this paper, it was recommended to use a CRA material with high heat resistance rather than an FRP material.