Oil/gas pipeline maintenance and emergency repair method and its progress

Safe and reliable pipeline system is an important guarantee for oil/gas exploitation and transportation. Emergency pipeline repair technology attracts more and more concern and attention. Timely maintenance and repair can reduce the pipeline accidents and the cost of pipeline operation to a certain extent. This paper presents the current situations of such techniques as hot tapping and plugging, internal intelligent plugging and fixture maintenance and the development tendency of corresponding operating tools, and also introduces new pipeline maintenance technologies, which provide certain guidance to the service pipelines under different conditions. Moreover, this paper makes a summary and projection of maintenance & emergency repair methods and technologies. It turns out that the emergency pipeline repair system (EPRS) will be the target in future pipeline construction.