Efforts Continue To Develop International Coating Standards

An Update
By Keith Coulson, P.E. | October 2009 Vol. 236 No. 10

Figure 1: Girth welding of a high pressure gas pipeline.

As previously reported in these pages (“Efforts Seek To Develop International Coating Standards,” by K. Coulson, P&GJ, August 2008) the International Standards Organization (ISO) in 2001 resolved at its TC67/SC2 Plenary meeting on Pipeline Transportation Systems in Bratislava to start developing external pipeline coating standards for adoption and utilization by the global market.

Consequently, the ISO Technical Committee ISO/TC67 formed a Work Group WG14 (Petroleum And Natural Gas Industries, Subcommittee SC2, Pipeline Transportation Systems) to identify which coatings standards were needed to best serve the requirements of the pipeline community. This work is now coming to fruition and in the last two years ISO has issued pipeline-coating standards for fusion bonded epoxy and - most recently - for field-applied girth-weld coatings.

While this article references and discusses in some manner the milestones for future publications and standards, it deals more specifically with the most recently published ISO standard on field-applied girth-weld coatings.

The ISO Technical Committee TC67/SC2 in 2001 laid out a program to identify which pipeline coatings required an internationally acceptable coating standard or specification. It was recognized that a need existed for standards for the following:

  • Three-Layer Polyethylene and Polypropylene Coatings;
  • Fusion Bond Epoxy (FBE);
  • Field Joint (Girth-Weld) Coatings;
  • Two-Layer Polyethylene; and
  • Concrete Coatings.

TC67/SC2 formed Work Group Fourteen (WG14) and Matt Dabiri of Williams (now with El Paso Pipelines), was appointed the coordinator of this entire program. However, as the WG14 program rapidly expanded, it became apparent that additional project management was required. In 2006, Tom Weber of Trenton was approached to work with Dabiri as the coordinator of WG14. (See Table 1 for a listing of Work Group Leaders, Coordinators and the ISO Editorial Committee (EDC).)

Table 1: List of Work Group Leaders, Coordinators and Editorial Committee Members and Represented Countries for the Development of the ISO 21809 Standards.

Development Stages
As detailed in the August 2008 article, the development, review and voting for all ISO Coatings standards involves four distinct stages. These are:

  1. CD: Committee Draft.
  2. DIS: Draft International Standard.
  3. FDIS: Final Draft International Standard.
  4. IS: International Standard.

Status Of ISO Coating Standards
By 2008, the five ISO petroleum and natural gas industries external-coating standards for buried or submerged pipeline used in pipeline transportation systems were either in preparation or had been published. Their status is as follows: