We have a small LPG installation.
This installation is practically located all outside. Tank is burried. Pipe size is 2 1/4".
The installation is almost two years old and now we can see that corrosion has started on flanges and weld joints. We would like to repaint the pipework.

Can somebody advise what safety considerations should be taken since corrossion would need to be somehow mechanically removed and may please someone advise recommendations on how this job could be undertaken.

The corrosion is at its early stages and I heard there are treatments or coatings which could be directly applied in such cases thus avoiding the mechanical cleaning but I'm a bit skeptical about these. Any experiences with such products?

I guess you ahev only 1 pipe, thus cannot be shutdown.

If you want to avoid mech cleaninng, chemical cleaning or water blasting may be the next options. If not, use advanced paints which can be applied directly without much cleaning such as Euronavy paint.

Rennie, the first thing to do is determine what type of corrosion it is. I am no expert on the subject but recently I had some (expatriate) inspectors assisting us with the turnaround on our refinery.
I learned about 2 types of corrosion crevice and galvanic, maybe there are more but these two were our major headache, especially on flanges, bolts, supports etc, and on our LPG bullet.
In short the crevice corrosion is related to the environment, humidity, wind (sea climate), drain holes that are plugged, flanges on a vertical pipe branch, were water will deposit and stay on the flanges etc.. There are several ways to prevent this, Monday I can put some references with documentation, but a search on google with (corrosion flange protection) will render a lot information.

Galvanic corrosion has to do with the mixing of incompatible materials. Imagine a carbon steel tank or bullet with a stainless steel transmitter etc.. The materials must be electrically isolated.

Preventing corrosion is not just taking a power brush and apply some coating, or take some loosing oil or other magical cleaner that eats away rust, iron, plastics etc..

Since the pipelines and flanges being corroded are above ground and in initial stage, it is possible to apply anti corrosion coating without mechanical cleaning. The coats will convert the rust or like that back into a form which will be compatible with parent material and again become a part of the parent material. There are many products . You may contact some professional companies who apply power saving coats and apply anti corrosive paints over equipments.
Regards
Irshad

I thank all of you for your replies.

No-one has any comments on the safety aspect. Does this mean there's nothing to worry about?

Thanks
rennie