OMV Austria – Ice Pigging in the Oil & Gas Sector

Ice Pigging delivers improved pressure and flow while removing significant iron sulphide deposits from an 8.5km brine injection network.

OMV Austria was experiencing significant pressure losses and water quality issues within its Prottes brine injection network. Although a new water treatment plant was producing excellent-quality water, historic deposits of iron sulphide within the existing distribution pipework were restricting performance.

Conventional pigging would have required costly enabling works and additional network downtime, so OMV worked with SUEZ to apply Ice Pigging — one of the technology’s first field applications within the oil and gas sector. The 8,500-metre network was divided into seven sections, with existing network fittings used wherever possible to minimise additional works.

The programme removed significant quantities of iron sulphide and bacterial growth, including more than 500kg of material from individual sections. Following cleaning, pressure at the end of the network increased by 0.5 bar, while some smaller-diameter pipes supplying injection wells experienced flow-rate increases of up to 30%. Most individual cleaning operations were completed in less than two hours, allowing the network to be returned rapidly to service.