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OIL & GAS

This is more than work its a lifestyle

Riky Bernardo is Senior Corrosion Engineer at RasGas, one of the major oil and gas exploration and production companies in the Middle East. His main responsibility is to provide technical support to the companys day-to-day natural gas and LNG production and processing activities to ensure they run smoothly and safely. Passionate about his role as a corrosion expert, Riky strives to constantly update his knowledge and urges manufacturers to do the same.

By Joanne McIntyre & John Butterfield

The role of Senior Corrosion Engineer is a varied one, explains Riky. I work within the Operations Technical Department, which acts as a technical authority in various engineering disciplines and works very closely and intensively with other departments like Projects and Maintenance
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to support the Operations Department. Typically I work five days a week from Sunday to Thursday although during special assignments such as planned shutdowns, I work in shifts. Whenever a field-emergency event occurs, Ill have to stop my routine activity and become
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involved in that at very short notice. On a day-to-day basis, Riky is involved with the corrosion engineering aspects relating to the following three areas: The corrosion prevention and mitigation program, including material selection, chemical
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explains Riky. Besides our routine and predicted job loads, unpredicted tasks will always arise. Its important that we are able to prioritize and Riky Bernardo: The most to distinguish important information for tasks based on a manufacturer should be their customers needs. urgency and importance or consequence levels. Ive been lucky enough to have exposure to various production and processing facilities from heavy and light oils to hydrocarbon condensates, sweet and sour gases, LPG, and LNG in both offshore and onshore and in different companies and regions. This means that I have had the opportunity to deal with almost all of the corrosion mechanisms, such as thinning due to sour water corrosion, localized thinning and pitting due to microbial activities, corrosion by acids, top of line corrosion, various cracking issues, atmospheric corrosion, under insulation corrosion, fatigue (thermal and mechanical) corrosion cracking, corrosion-erosion, galvanic corrosion, brittle fracture, high temperature creeping, etc. I believe that material selection is the essential factor to minimizing the probability of material failure. Design engineers should be able to select the proper material to handle the process and environment from the first day of installation until the end of plant life time, in a cost-effective manner. Every material has its limitations. For example with carbon steel, it is very common to use corrosion inhibitors to mitigate internal corrosion, and organic coating plus a cathodic protection system to protect the metal from external corrosion. Austenitic stainless steel is very sensitive to chloride, so proper insulation management and an inspection program will be required. The bottom line is that corrosion prevention and mitigation are something very unique and specific that cant only be learned from text books. A tailor-made solution needs to be prepared carefully and wisely. Thats why exposures to practical applications and on the job experience are essential.
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treatment, cathodic protection (CP), and coating and lining application; Corrosion monitoring and inspection activities including probes, coupons, fluid monitoring, CP monitoring, and other corrosion inspection methods; and Corrosion management systems, for instance developing a Risk Based Inspection (RBI) program, leading and participating in risk assessments and root cause failure analysis, etc.

More than just a job


To me, having a career as an engineer in the oil and gas industries means more than just work; its a lifestyle. One of my hobbies
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is updating myself with new information as well as increasing my knowledge. By becoming a Corrosion Engineer, Im convinced that Im dealing with the most dynamic process and unlimited resources of knowledge in the industry. Another advantage of being an oil and gas engineer is that we meet with many experienced oil and gas practitioners from service providers, consultants, manufacturers, NGOs, and other peers within the industry itself. Its proven that sharing knowledge has resulted in mutual benefits by successfully enriching our experiences and enhancing our skills. The biggest challenge in his role is working within a limited time frame,

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monitoring installation, cathodic protection upgrade, process piping modification and heat exchanger material upgrades, continues Riky. If I could pass on any advice to manufacturers, it would be that wherever you are in the world, the most important information for their business continuity is the customers needs. Manufacturers should perform continuous updates on new technology that can be applied to the hot issues faced by their customers within the industry. Its also essential to place more emphasis on Research and Development to find better solutions for unsolved problems. Id like to see corrosion resistant alloy (CRA) improvements in sea water application areas. Currently available CRAs like nickel based alloy 625, C-276, and titanium alloys are still considered as very expensive, while some failures are still occurring with the lower material grades. The other improvement opportunity is for manufacturers to optimize the production and delivery time of some CRAs that are considered as long-lead items. People are becoming increasingly creative, and data gathered by lessons learned is important enough to become a consideration when selecting materials for equipment design. Its now a mandatory requirement to perform life cycle cost calculations before giving green light status to any project. In the near future, only the most price-competitive and best-suited material will be selected. People will no longer see CAPEX as the only consideration, but also the overall costs during project operation life time.

When not hard at work for Rasgas, Riky enjoys travelling and spending time with his family.

Improvements in material engineering


In recent years, material engineering has grown and expanded tremendously, continues Riky. For example ten years ago I was impressed by the ability of RTP (Reinforced Thermo Plastic) pipe materials which were able to perform under quite high operating pressure (more than 600 psi) in water injection wells. However, it was noticed that the application was still very limited due to its ultra-violet sensitivity. Less than five years later, I learned of massive improvements to the products. Now, based on new breakthroughs, highly UV-resistance RTP pipes are available in the market. Looking specifically at metallic materials, I am also impressed by the efforts of manufacturers to achieve continuous improvements. For example, a few years ago corrosion engineers may have decided to select a nickel based alloy to withstand a medium temperature chloride environment. Nowadays, they may consider super-austenitic and or super duplex stainless steel which are more cost competitive up to certain pH, temperature, and chloride levels. The materials we commonly use at RasGas are neither exceptional nor special formulas. Due to the cost effectiveness, market-availability, weld-ability, and a broad range of applications, austenitic stainless
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steel 316 and 316L are the most common corrosion resistant alloys used by many companies within oil and gas industries. In an environment containing chloride and operating at high temperatures, either incoloy 825 or inconnel 625 is used. In seawater applications Copper-Nickel 90-10 and titanium are common. High temperature austenitic 304H, super austenitic 6% Mo and 904L, weld stabilized austenitic grades 321, duplex 2205 and super duplex 2507, feritic 430 and 409, martensitic 410, 17-4 precipitationhardening, 13-Cr, Monel 400, nickel based alloy C276, and even low-alloy steels are also chosen for specific projects.

Advice to manufacturers
At the moment Im working on some small projects related to internal corrosion

About Riky Bernardo


Riky graduated from chemical/process engineering department of Parahyangan Catholic University, Indonesia in 1999. Hes been in the Upstream Oil and Gas industry for more than 13 years and is a registered member of NACE and IChemE (UK). Riky started his career in 2000 as a Field Application Engineer in EONChemicals. The company seconded him to Caltex Pacific Indonesia (currently known as Chevron). There, in the largest crude oil producer company in Indonesia, he was part of the Field Management Engineering Team providing technical services and consultancy for all chemical treatment applications, fluid monitoring, and corrosion control. In 2005 he joined ConocoPhillips as Senior Chemical and Corrosion Engineer, where he enriched his experience in offshore processing facilities and natural gas production environments. Since 2009 he has been Senior Corrosion Engineer with RasGas Company, one of the major LNG producers in the world. Riky enjoys travelling and basketball and swimming are his main hobbies. Riky describes himself as a family-oriented man who is keen to spend time with his children.

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