An in-line inspection tells you where a crack is and roughly how big it is. It does not tell you whether the crack is growing, or why.
What happened
In August 2026 the American Petroleum Institute (API) published the second edition of Recommended Practice 1176, Assessment and Management of Cracking in Pipelines. The first edition appeared in 2016.
What changed
According to API, the new edition:
- improves guidance on classifying crack-like features as likely active cracks or stable anomalies;
- covers the causes and conditions of stress corrosion cracking (SCC) in more detail;
- says more about manufacturing threats, including electric resistance welded (ERW) seam issues;
- integrates in-line inspection data, hydrotest results, operating history, coating condition, cathodic protection data and metallurgical findings;
- bases more decisions on crack growth assessment and remaining life, with better guidance on preventive measures such as pressure management, recoating and cathodic protection.
What it means for asset owners
Metallurgical findings are one of the data sources the new edition expects operators to integrate. Whether a crack is active, and what drives it, is usually settled by examining a removed section: the fracture surface, the microstructure at the seam and the corrosion products inside the crack. Those findings feed the growth and remaining-life assessment. A cut-out that goes to scrap without examination is evidence lost.
What an engineer should check
- Do your dig and cut-out procedures preserve removed sections for examination?
- Do metallurgical findings go back into the integrity management plan?
- Have older ERW-seam lines been reviewed against the manufacturing-threat guidance?
Source. "API strengthens pipeline integrity management standard", Hydrocarbon Processing, 18 August 2026. Read the original article. This article summarises the source in our own words; see the original for full details. It is general technical information, not advice on a specific asset.
Related reading
- Stress-corrosion cracking: three ingredients, one failure
- Weld failure investigation
- What to preserve after a component fails
- MTIS failure investigation services
Follow MTIS on LinkedIn for new failure reviews and industry briefings.