Five years later, a slightly enlarged group of operators has revisited the current status of SCC threat management in North America. The operational experience relating to over 256,000km of gas transmission pipelines during the last five years has been compared with that seen up to 2005. The threat-management procedures and practices, including the application of hydrostatic testing, SCC direct assessment, and the latest-generations of crack- detection in-line inspection (ILI), have been examined, and benchmarks for good practice have been identified. The increasing application of SCC direct assessment and crack-detection ILI has focused attention on the prediction of failure pressures for discovered SCC; a protocol for gathering consistent data during post-ILI excavations has been developed, and the influence of flaw profile on predicted failure pressure has been explored.

This paper presents an overview of the JIP Phase II programme and summarizes some of the early results. It is intended that the outcomes of the individual tasks will be disseminated for the benefit of the wider industry, so that they can provide an informed basis for any proposed modifications and improvements to industry guidance and regulations.