it is a common challenge to have protective coatings on metal surfaces compromised during transportation and construction on site. When left unattended, it may lead to corrosion. 

The GMA team in Jubail addressed a similar challenge at the Fadhili project in Jubail, Saudi Arabia in October last year. The USD$13.3bn gas plant built by Saudi Aramco is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2019. 

Selected areas on a number of carbon steel pipelines of the newly built structure required cleaning and re-coating. The protective coating on these areas had peeled off and the exposed areas were affected by corrosion. 

The initial surface preparation work for these pipelines were performed off-site by the contractor using steel shot but they were requested to use GMA Garnet, the preferred abrasive media by Saudi Aramco for their repair work.

Moreover, the repair work is performed in confined areas where conventional blasting equipment cannot be used. Precision blasting is required to avoid affecting the rest of the well-coated areas of the pipelines. 

Based on these requirements, the GMA team proposed an innovative solution of using the IBIX 9 Pressure Blaster. These portable blasting machines are uncommonly used in major large-scale projects but after seeing how effective the machines perform on pre-coated surfaces during the blasting trials, Saudi Aramco insisted on using the IBIX 9 and GMA Garnet to complete the repair work.

The repair work is expected to be completed in April 2019. 

By Ramkumar Vijayakumar, Jubail