Norway’s Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) has opened a new corrosion test loop built entirely in the nickel alloy Hastelloy C-276. The loop will be used for corrosion testing in aggressive environments for the oil and gas industry. The new Hastelloy loop will increase IFE’s capabilities to run corrosion experiments particularly at high temperature and with high H2S content. IFE has several corrosion test loops in operation, where the corrosive environments encountered in oil and gas wells and pipelines can be simulated. Experiments with moderate temperatures and chloride levels are done in stainless steel loops. IFE has for about ten years had one Hastelloy corrosion loop in operation, where experiments with high temperature, high chloride content and high H2S content can be performed. The last years the demand for experiments with high H2S content has increased markedly, and it became necessary to build a second Hastelloy corrosion loop to meet the demand for high temperature and high H2S experiments from oil companies from all around the world. The second Hastelloy corrosion test loop was officially opened by IFE’s managing director Kjell Bendiksen 15 January 2004. Both Hastelloy loops are designed for a maximum operating temperature of 150 °C and a maximum pressure of 50 bar. The new loop has been made explosion-proof according to Ex regulations, enabling experiments with presence of crude oil or condensate. During the last three years experiments have been performed in the first Hastelloy loop for oil and gas fields with high H2S content in Kazakhstan and several countries around the Persian Gulf. The first experiments in the new Hastelloy loop will be for a gasfield with very high CO2 content offshore Australia.
