Lightning and surge protection for oil pipelines

Prevent damage, keep interference voltage under control

Pipelines often run alongside high-voltage lines or railway lines. If they run parallel, interference voltages can have a negative effect on pipelines causing wear and tear and thus corrosion damage.

Protect people

Interference voltages often lead to high touch voltages. These dangerous overvoltages present an enormous risk to people areas which are freely accessible and during maintenance work. The resulting injuries can be severe or even life-threatening. Don't let it come to this.

Influence of interference voltage

Sources of interference produce stray currents and electromagnetic fields. >>> Details
Interference voltage generated high-voltage lines
Interference voltage from earth faults
Interference voltage caused by lightning strikes
Interference voltage from electric railways

Interference voltage endangers human life and causes AC corrosion to components and devices.

Sources of interference such as high-voltage lines, electric railways or lightning strikes produce stray currents and electromagnetic fields. These are injected into the pipeline via the ground, changing its potential and thus causing AC corrosion.

High costs due to leaks

This leads to leaks which often causes severe damage to property and the environment. The resulting costs are enormous: pipelines have to be repaired, there are supply bottlenecks and claims for damages due to leaked oil, etc.

This is how you protect pipelines from damage

Passive corrosion protection

Passive corrosion protection, i.e. painting or coating the pipeline, is the first step. However, this alone does not suffice as even small imperfections in the coating soon lead to local corrosion on the pipeline. A far greater degree of safety is achieved with active corrosion protection.

Active corrosion protection

In the case of active corrosion protection, a protective current (direct current) prevents current from escaping in places where the coating or sheathing is flawed. This cathodic corrosion protection is the most effective method of permanently arresting electrochemical corrosion processes.

Product recommendation

VCSD: Specially designed for cathodic protection

The smart decoupling device protects equipment and components in case of temporary and long-term overvoltages. It also protects people from dangerously high touch voltages.

The smart decoupling device

protects people against touch voltage
protects pipelines and storage tanks.

With the VCSD you can limit long-duration AC voltages to a pre-set value without negatively influencing the cathodic protection potential on the pipeline (DC potential).