Monday, June 20, 2016

Tips On Loading A Pig Into Pipeline

By Helen Williams


In numerous occasions, conduit pipes or pipelines will require to be cleaned and disposed of unwanted materials, and even inspected. These activities are mainly aimed at ensuring their dispensation of service remains effective and exemplary, as intended. To facilitate these upkeep practices, pigging comes in. It is a process which basically involves equipment referred to as pigs, which greatly help in maintenances of piping systems. Loading a pig into pipeline must nonetheless not disrupt normal operations and flow of medium.

It involves inserting this pig device into a section of the conduit pipes called launching station or simply launcher, cutting down to normal diameter. Consequently, the launcher is closed and then the product that is being conveyed by the conduits, say oil or water, considering it is driven by pressure, pushes it down the conduits pipes till it reaches its intended destination or trap, called receiving station or colloquially pig catcher.

Pigging through times has extensively been used in cleaning conduit piping that has somewhat large circumference or diameter, especially in the oils industry. Today, nevertheless, there has been the adoption of pigging systems with smaller diameters, especially in many plant proprietors and batch plants. This is usually in a bid to fast-track efficiency, lower costs and generally ensures normal operations progress smoothly.

Pigging comes in handy throughout the various steps involved in the transfer procedure, for example during the filling, refilling, blending, emptying not to mention, storage of mediums. Analyses have constantly shown that pigging has become popular across major water, oil, gas and other pipelining companies and plants transferring products such as chemicals, toiletries, paints, etc.

There are other pigging devices that are used in inspecting conduit pipes, for the sole purposes of mitigating any possible leaks which may ultimately result in explosions and other hazardous ramifications. They do not hinder production in any way, but nonetheless, some of the product may be lost after the pigs are extracted. Pigging can also be done when separating different components in multiproduct conduit pipes.

However, during the execution of pigging, various cautionary measures should mandatorily be taken, to avoid ugly scenarios like injuries, impairments or accidents of whatever kind. There has been multiple numbers of accidents that are recorded whereby operators are injured and some even killed whilst performing pigging operations. The commonest cause of suchlike cases is whereby closure doors are opened, whilst pressure is still being exerted in the vessel. Another cause is whereby the main valves are opened when the closure doors are not yet completely closed.

In addition, an accident might occur if valves remain open before closure outlets are fully closed. It is also equally dangerous to leave closure outlets opened, even while the vessel has highly concentrated toxic substances or gases, which will eventually attract serious health complications.

Experts however warn that this pigging process should be handled with caution and precision, since there have been many accidents arising from carelessness or ignorance. It is therefore salient to make sure you exercise precautionary measures in the entire process, and ensure you are well-versed with the intricacies involved, to avert injuries or fatal accidents.




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