May members' meeting - by Zoom

Presented by Torben Lund Skovhus, VIA University College, Denmark.

5:30 pm (Eastern Australian time) on Thursday May 26 2022.

Please indicate your interest in attending by following this link and clicking "Register" 

Join the Zoom meeting from 5:30 pm Eastern Australian time on 26/5 at -

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6339662006

Torben will discuss how to integrate MIC in failure investigations in the offshore oil and gas industry.  Two examples from the Danish and UK sector of the North Sea will be discussed. Case 1 describes an oil transmission system in the UK sector of the North Sea suffering from MIC.  Case 2 describes a topside water injection system that suffered from MIC and how the investigation was carried out; from the spool samples left the offshore platform in the Danish sector of the North Sea following it to the shore base and onwards to the specialist materials and microbiology laboratories. Emphasis will be on practical sampling preservation, shipment and laboratory processing and lessons learned from the two cases. 

Finally, this presentation highlights on the importance of stronger emphasis on risk assessment models including MIC, industry standards and training of personnel, when it comes to the understanding, mitigation and management of MIC and biofouling in the oil and gas industry.

Torben Lund Skovhus is Project Manager at VIA University College in the Centre of Applied Research and Development in Building, Energy and Environment, Denmark. He graduated from Aarhus University, Denmark, in 2002 with a master's degree (cand.scient.) in biology. In 2005 he earned a PhD from the Department of Microbiology, Aarhus University. In 2005, Torben was employed at Danish Technological Institute (DTI) in the Centre for Chemistry and Water Technology, where he was responsible for the consultancy activities for the oil and gas industry around the North Sea. Torben was heading DTI Microbiology Laboratory while he was developing several consultancy and business activities with the oil and gas industry. He founded DTI Oil and Gas in both Denmark and Norway, where he was team and business development leader for five years. Thereafter Torben worked as project manager at DNV GL (Det Norske Veritas) in the field of corrosion management in both Bergen and Esbjerg. Torben is currently of NACE/AMPP SC-22 on Biodeterioration and ISMOS TSC, an organization he cofounded in 2006. He is an international scientific reviewer and the author of 100+ technical and scientific papers and book chapters related to industrial microbiology, applied biotechnology, corrosion management, oilfield microbiology, water treatment and safety, reservoir souring, and biocorrosion. He is coeditor of Applied Microbiology and Molecular Biology in Oilfield Systems (Springer, 2011); 3rd International Symposium on Applied Microbiology and Molecular Biology in Oil Systems (Elsevier, 2013); Applications of Molecular Microbiological Methods (Caister Academic Press, 2014); Microbiologically Influenced Corrosion in the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry (CRC Press, 2017), Oilfield Microbiology (CRC Press, 2019) and Failure Analysis of Microbiologically Influenced Corrosion (CRC Press, 2021). Torben was honored with the NACE Technical Achievement Award in 2020 for his outstanding work in international MIC Research and Education.

A book on the same topic has just been published by Taylor and Francis: Richard B. Eckert and Torben Lund Skovhus, in the series: Microbes, Materials, and the Engineered Environment.  The book serves as a complete guide to corrosion failure analysis with emphasis on diagnosis of MIC. It provides background information on the forensic process, types of data or evidence needed to perform the analysis, industrial case studies, details on the MIC failure analysis process, and protocols for field and lab use. By applying the principles of chemistry, microbiology, and metallurgy, readers will be able to reliably determine the mechanistic cause of corrosion damage and failures and select appropriate methods for mitigating future corrosion incidents.