2012 — Number 1 - ExxonMobil

Testing
for the best
ExxonMobil lab ensures tubular-goods
quality while reaching major safety milestone.
It’s Saturday morning, and
your “to-do” list includes a
simple plumbing repair under the
kitchen sink. Job completed, you
reconnect two pipes. You turn
on the faucet to check for leaks,
and, to your dismay, water is
dripping from the connection.
Imagine a more serious situation.
The pipe is a half-foot in
diameter, thousands of feet in
length and extends well below
the ocean floor from an offshore
production platform exposed to
severe conditions while producing
oil or gas. In this instance,
failure of the connection is simply
not an option.
For the past 25 years,
ExxonMobil’s Tubular Goods Test
Facility (TGTF) in Houston has
conducted thorough, comprehensive
evaluations to make sure
that doesn’t happen. It puts casing
and tubing (steel pipe, also
called “tubulars”) and pipe connections
used in oil and gas wells
through punishing tests to ensure
that they perform safely in any
environment, on land or sea.
TGTF is a full-scale lab –
the only one of its kind among
major oil companies – with the
unique testing ability to assess
the performance of pipe and
pipe connectors.
“The facility’s primary mission,”
says David Baker, tubular technology
team lead, “is to ensure the
mechanical integrity and reliability
of the tubular equipment installed
25 Story by Bill Corporon Photography by Robert Seale
in ExxonMobil’s wells. We place a
special emphasis on connections
because they’re such a critical
link in the tubular system.”
The facility, managed by the
Drilling and Subsurface group
within ExxonMobil Upstream
Research Company, also develops
proprietary and patented
technology and helps the company
select high-quality tubular
goods at cost-effective prices.
In the quarter-century that
TGTF employees have carried
out the facility’s mission, they’ve
also achieved a stellar safety
record – no lost-time incidents.
How testing is done
The TGTF is in a 20,000-squarefoot
building about 20 miles
southeast of downtown Houston.
It contains three key testing
components:
An assembly area where pipe
can be screwed together and
taken apart multiple times to
evaluate its durability. The area
is also used to assess “galling”
in the pipe’s connection
threads. Galling describes damage
to the pipe threads that
prevents two pieces from fitting
together correctly.
A “burst pit” to test how a
connection behaves when
pressure inside the pipe is
high enough to cause the pipe
to tear. A heavy metal slab
that locks securely into posi-
tion covers the pit to safely
confine the failed pipe.
A pressure containment building
housing a frame that can
apply a load of more than
2 million pounds. It’s used to
evaluate the performance of
pipes under very-high-pressure
fluid loads. The frame is
essentially a massive hydraulic
press that can push and
pull on the pipe. The pushing
and pulling create tension
and compression that simulate
what happens in operating
wells.
Keegan Johnson (above),
daily operations coordinator
at the Tubular Goods
Test Facility in Houston,
monitors the assembly of
a pipe connection.