Oil and Gas Upstream

Industry Context

Upstream operators carry inspection obligations at both ends of the asset life. Ageing fields and sour service drive integrity spend during operation, while decommissioning sits on the balance sheet as a formal asset retirement obligation under Ind AS and IFRS, with the worldwide oil and gas decommissioning liability independently estimated at USD 311 to 362 billion.

Between those two poles sits a continuous demand for materials qualification, corrosion testing, and fitness for service judgement. TCR's sour-gas laboratory runs SSC, HIC, and SOHIC programmes to NACE and ISO 15156 against Petroleum Development Oman, Saudi Aramco, and ONGC/EIL specifications, and the group's FFS and failure analysis bench converts inspection findings into defensible run, repair, or retire decisions.

The upstream oil and gas vertical splits across three buyer pools:

The Indian onshore and offshore operator pool (ONGC, Oil India, Cairn Oil and Gas, Reliance KG-D6, Vedanta) anchors the long-tenure relationships, with TCR's ONGC empanelment representing the single longest active vendor relationship in the company's history.

The GCC and MENA upstream pool (Saudi Aramco, ADNOC, PDO, OQGN, KOC, Qatar Energy, KNPC, Iraqi Ministry of Oil, PetroChina International Iraq) carries the volume of cross-border and field-services-adjacent work via TCR Arabia and TCR Advanced.

The international oilfield-services and equipment-OEM pool (Halliburton, Schlumberger, Cameron International, NOV Inc., Baker Hughes, Weatherford, GE International) sources verification testing, First Article Qualification, and audit-grade material certification.

The static-equipment specialist line is held: TCR is the laboratory and integrity bench for storage tanks, pressure vessels, separator and slug catcher, manifold piping, and wellhead-adjacent fixed equipment, not a rotating-equipment field service contractor.

The CO2 EOR (enhanced oil recovery) trend in the Indian onshore basins (Bombay High, Cambay, Krishna-Godavari, Cauvery) brings supercritical CO2 piping and reservoir-tie-in qualification work. CCUS at offshore platforms brings cross-vertical scope with Pipelines and Marine. Hydrogen blending in natural-gas trunklines brings API 941 HTHA discipline and ASTM F519 / API 20E hydrogen embrittlement bench into upstream operator-side scope. The decommissioning agenda (legacy offshore platforms, idle wells, abandoned pipelines) brings structural assessment and material recovery scope.

TCR is the laboratory and integrity bench for the sour and sweet service surface area, the wellhead-equipment First Article Qualification stream, and the Aramco-grade ECA and RT capability that the upstream vertical demands.

Damage Mechanisms We Investigate

Service Applications Across the TCR Continuum

Upstream oil and gas buys integrity against sour service.

Hydrogen sulphide partial pressure governs material selection for wellheads, christmas trees, downhole tubulars, flowlines, and separators per NACE MR0175/ISO 15156, and the laboratory evidence behind that selection, sulphide stress cracking, hydrogen induced cracking, and stress-oriented hydrogen induced cracking, is where TCR runs one of the largest sour service testing capacities in India. In operation the problem set widens to carbon dioxide corrosion in flowlines, microbiologically influenced corrosion in water systems, fatigue of structural connections offshore, and erosion in sand-producing wells. Shutdown windows on production facilities are short and weather-bound; procurement risk sits in forgings, seals, and elastomers for high pressure high temperature service. TCR Engineering and TCR Advanced service all five stages of the five-stage Trusted Relationship Model (see Why TCR) for onshore and offshore operators and their equipment manufacturers.

Stage One, Sourcing and Procurement: Materials for sour service are qualified through sulphide stress cracking per NACE TM0177-2016 Methods A through D including four-point bend, hydrogen induced cracking per NACE TM0284, stepwise cracking and stress-oriented hydrogen induced cracking, hydrogen embrittlement testing, and NORSOK M-710 qualification of polymers, elastomers, and composites for sour exposure. Forging and valve vendor audits, sample picking, in-production checks, and loading supervision protect the supply chain for wellhead and pressure-control equipment.

Stage Two, Construction and Commissioning: For gathering stations, processing trains, and terminal construction, TCR delivers baseline non-destructive testing on piping and vessels, phased array ultrasonic testing and time of flight diffraction, radiography, welder certification and procedure qualification per ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section IX and API 1104, post-weld heat treatment with hardness control for sour service, and positive material identification, establishing the baseline record for each facility.

Stage Three, In-Service: On producing facilities, TCR runs corrosion mapping on separators, knockout drums, and flowlines, thickness monitoring programmes, remote visual inspection of confined and buried equipment, thermography, and risk-based inspection planning per API RP 580 and API RP 581, with integrity operating windows per API RP 584 tied to produced fluid chemistry so inspection intervals track actual corrosivity rather than design assumptions.

Stage Four, Shutdown and Turnaround: In the shutdown window, TCR inspects pressure vessels internally per API 510, exchanger and cooler tube bundles, storage tanks per API 653 including in-service robotic options, flare and relief system components, and structural steel, with in-situ metallographic replication on high temperature components and magnetic particle and penetrant testing on nozzles and attachment welds, supported by turnaround inspection manpower.

Stage Five, Continuum: Findings feed fitness for service per API 579-1/ASME FFS-1 on corroded vessels and piping, engineering critical assessment of flowline and riser girth welds, failure analysis of downhole, wellhead, and surface equipment including seal and elastomer failures, remaining life assessment of ageing facilities, and the materials-selection and contract research studies that qualify equipment for the next field development.

Marquee Projects

For Petroleum Development Oman and OQ Gas Networks, TCR qualifies sour-service line pipe to PDO SP-2347 and OQGN G14-PD-PL, with hardness, HIC, and SSC acceptance read against criteria stricter than NACE. CTOD with hydrogen-sulphide pre-charging, developed for Larsen and Toubro, charges specimens for 96 hours in NACE TM0177 Solution A before loading within a 20-minute window.

Storage-sphere, terminal, and transfer-line investigations cover corrosion under insulation, pitting, and stress-corrosion cracking.