Microstructural Analysis of Selected Corroded Materials from Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry

The enormous financial loss and the problems of plants shut down, lost production, product loss, product contaminations and loss of customer confidence as a result of corrosion is a serious challenge to the oil and gas industry. The objective of this paper is to investigate the microstructural characteristics of selected corroded materials from Nigeria oil and gas environments. A chemical analysis of the selected corroded materials was carried out with the aid of spectro-metal analyzer. Also, the microstructures of these corroded materials were examined under optical microscope. The results obtained were compared with the chemical compositions and microstructures of the standard alloy of the as received materials .Significant variations were noticed both in the chemical compositions and the ferrite/pearlite ratio within the microstructure. It is concluded that corrosion has added some undesirable features to the material samples and altered the microstructure characteristics which will remarkably alters their mechanical properties.