Corrosion research the focus of $600K funding

St John’s, NL – Newfoundland’s Research and Development Corporation says it is providing $598,000 to build research and development capacity and expertise in corrosion research, an area of significant interest for the oil and gas, marine shipping and other industries who work in the Arctic and other harsh environments.

The project includes a $350,000 funding for a new R&D test site in Argentia and $248,000 for an R&D project to model Corrosion Under Insulation (CUI), led by Memorial University researcher Dr. Faisal Khan in conjunction with industry partner Husky Energy.

Husky and MUN’s School of Graduate Studies are contributing an additional $126,000 to the project.  Dr. Khan’s research into CUI is the first project to be conducted at the site. The project will develop a model to determine the CUI rate in harsh environments and help anticipate the need to perform maintenance on subsea pipelines and other equipment.  

“Corrosion of equipment offshore and onshore is a major concern for oil and gas producers, ship owners and others. To diversify our R&D landscape, Newfoundland and Labrador must invest in the expertise, research and infrastructure required to address these needs, locally and globally,” says Glenn Janes, Research and Development Corporation’s CEO.

The recently commissioned test site will help assess coatings and materials performance in a real-world environment. The exposure site will be used by researchers and businesses to evaluate the detection, measurement and analysis of asset integrity issues such as corrosion in harsh operating environments.  The test site will include test apparatus for CUI, coatings performance research and other research activities, a meteorological tower, exposure racks, security fencing, and data acquisition and communications equipment.