Utility uses robotic technology for pipeline maintenance
ST. LOUIS—For those who still believe robots are a technology that will only be viable far in the future, Spire is proving them wrong. The company has been reaping the benefits of robotic assistance for more than a year. Since a successful pilot program in 2017, CISBOT has been on the job, successfully examining and repairing some of the utility’s underground natural gas pipelines.
CISBOT was developed by New York-based ULC Robotics and can travel through large-diameter gas mains to repair joints from the inside without interrupting natural gas service. It has been used in New York and Boston, and this is the first use of the technology in the Midwest.
“It’s our premise that we are innovators in a lot of ways,” Tim Goodson, Spire’s vice president of field operations for Missouri, told American Gas. “CISBOT gave us an opportunity to innovate and transform our business.”
While the robot is in operation, construction crews are freed up to work on other important projects, he noted.
Spire expects to seal approximately 14,000 feet of pipeline robotically this year, with limited disruption to neighborhoods, said Goodson. Because the robot can travel underground for 750 feet in either direction, there are far fewer excavation sites in neighborhood streets than would be required for traditional pipeline maintenance. “Using this technology, we’re delivering on our promise to customers to always provide a reliable system while keeping our rates as low as possible,” he said.
Well into Spire’s second year with CISBOT, Goodson said the utility is satisfied with the results. “We’ve had only one bump in the road,” he told us. “We had some pipes we thought would be a good candidate for CISBOT repair. But we encountered several joints that ended up being back-buttered—joined in the interior and exterior. Typically, a joint is only joined on the exterior of the pipe bell. That limited the ability of the technology to drill into the joint and inject the sealant. So, that section of pipe will have to be maintained using the traditional method, until replacement can occur.”
The “traditional method” involves excavating what Goodson calls “mini holes” every 12 to 14 feet and then injecting sealant from the exterior. CISBOT offers a much less disruptive, far more efficient solution.
“To be able to do so many joints in a year is phenomenal compared with what we could do traditionally,” Goodson told us. “It’s also much more cost-effective and less intrusive to neighborhoods and the street. We still have a number of years left to replace all of the cast-iron lines, so this is a valuable extension of life for these pipes.”