Dacon inspection services just received an award for its work on the prestigious Oyu Tolgoi Project in Mongolia.  Oyu Tolgoi is the largest foreign investment that Mongolia has ever seen and will be one of the largest copper and gold mines in the world.

In the beginning of 2011 Dacon inspection services was contacted by Fluor corporation from Texas to provide TOFD inspection on the HDPE pipelines on the Oyu Tolgoi project.

Inspection of HDPE brings some specific challenges, which few companies in the world have experience with and know how to tackle.  Dacon inspection has an impressive track record when it comes to inspection of HDPE. Dacon has inspected numerous HDPE pipelines by use of their ultrasonic intelligent pigging system. HDPE pipelines as thick as 110 mm were successfully inspected for the presence of wall thinning and erosion type defects.  Even though ultrasonic inspection of HDPE with this high thickness was considered to be impossible by many, Dacon was able to provide a solution. The inspection system has gone through a lot of development over the years and the results are impressive.

For the TOFD inspection of the HDPE pipeline girth welds at Oyu Tolgoi, Dacon had to develop their own TOFD probe wedges to come to a satisfactory result. Besides this, procedures were established and validation tests were carried out. ISCO Industries, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of HDPE pipeline, supplied a great number of test samples for the purpose of the validation and qualification tests.  A wide range of welded pipe samples of different sizes and thickness containing a variety of defects was available for testing.

Dacon’s has been working at Oyu Tolgoi to great satisfaction of the client from the middle of 2011 and the work is still ongoing. Last November the “Supplier of the month” award was awarded to Dacon for the quality of its services and its great commitment to safety onsite. This is quite an achievement considering that in general there are up to 12.000 people working on site each day.