Emerging Skills Program — no certification exam
Pipeline Integrity Management
Threat identification, inline inspection, defect assessment and repair selection across a pipeline system, under a management framework that has to hold up to a regulator.
Why this matters
The problem this solves
A pipeline integrity programme is judged twice: once by whether it prevents a release, and once by whether it can be shown to a regulator to have been reasonable in advance.
ASME B31.8S and API 1160 both build the same spine — identify the threats, gather the data, assess, mitigate, and re-evaluate on an interval you can defend. The work that actually consumes a team is the middle: making sense of an inline inspection run, deciding which of nine hundred features matter, and choosing a repair that will still be acceptable in ten years.
This programme runs that spine end to end, with real weight on defect assessment and on the quality of the ILI data everything else rests on.
Before you enrol
Is this a certification?
The short answer is no, and it is worth being explicit about it rather than leaving it to be discovered later.
What this programme gives you
- Four days across the full assessment cycle, from threat register to re-assessment interval
- Worked defect assessment on real ILI feature data
- A method for challenging ILI data quality rather than accepting a vendor report
- An EIM certificate of completion
What it does not
- Not preparation for a certification exam — this is not API 1169 preparation
- No API credential at the end
- Not an ILI tool operator or NDT qualification
- Not a substitute for jurisdiction-specific regulatory requirements
If you need a recognised credential, start at certification exam preparation.
Who it's for
Roles this is built around
Pipeline integrity engineers
Any level
Running the assessment cycle and answering for the intervals.
Operations and maintenance leads
Pipeline systems
Turning a dig list into a work programme that fits a real budget.
Corrosion and materials engineers
Cross-discipline
Supplying the threat picture the whole programme is built on.
What it covers
The outline
An outline, not a weighted Body of Knowledge — nobody publishes weights for a subject with no exam behind it.
The management framework
ASME B31.8S and API 1160 side by side, and what a defensible programme has to contain.
Threat identification
The nine threat categories, interacting threats, and time-dependent versus stable.
Inline inspection
MFL, UT and geometry tools, tool selection, and reading a vendor report critically.
ILI data quality
API RP 1163, verification digs, unity plots, and what a tolerance statement actually promises.
Defect assessment
Metal loss, dents, cracks and their interaction, and where API 579-1 is invoked.
Direct assessment
ECDA and ICDA where a line cannot be pigged, and their real limitations.
Repair and re-assessment
Repair method selection, and setting the next assessment interval defensibly.
Outcomes
What you will be able to do
- Build a threat register for a pipeline system and identify the interacting threats
- Select an inline inspection tool appropriate to the threats you actually expect
- Challenge an ILI vendor report using verification dig data rather than accepting it
- Assess reported metal loss, dents and cracks and prioritise a dig programme
- Choose a repair method that will still be defensible at the next assessment
- Set and justify a re-assessment interval under ASME B31.8S or API 1160
Standards referenced
What the programme works from
| Standard | What we use it for | Note |
|---|---|---|
| ASME B31.8S | Managing system integrity of gas pipelines | The framework |
| API 1160 | Managing system integrity for hazardous liquid pipelines | The liquids equivalent |
| API RP 1163 | In-line inspection systems qualification | ILI data quality |
| NACE SP0502 | Pipeline external corrosion direct assessment | For unpiggable lines |
| API 579-1 | Fitness-For-Service | Invoked for defect assessment |
How it runs
Ways to take it
Formats offered — not scheduled dates. Live cohort dates live on the course page, so there is only ever one copy of a date.
| Format | Duration | Group size | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live online | 4 days | Up to 15 | Split across sessions rather than run as consecutive full days |
| In-house | By arrangement | 6–20 | Delivered against your own equipment, your own findings and your own procedures |
FAQs
Questions people ask first
No. API 1169 is Pipeline Construction Inspector — a real certification, examined by API, and covering construction rather than in-service integrity. EIM prepares people for it separately through the certification guides. This programme is about managing a line that is already in the ground.
It covers the frameworks — ASME B31.8S and API 1160 — which is what most jurisdictions build on. Jurisdiction-specific obligations differ and we point at them rather than pretending to teach every regime.
A little over a third, plus the ILI data quality module that feeds it. That is deliberate: it is the part where a wrong answer costs the most, and the part most often taken on trust from a vendor.
Want the full outline?
Tell us your role and what you are trying to fix, and we will send the programme outline and what it would take to run it for your team.