Hostile oileld corrosive environments have challenged the production and transportation
operations of the petroleum industry. The estimated cost of corrosion on the U.S. economy in the year 2002
resulted in an expenditure of about 276 billion U.S. dollars. This amount was an increase of more than
$100 billion over a previous ve year period. Corrosion maintenance expenditures over this 5 year period
were approximately 3.1% of the U.S. GDP, and stimulated congress to enact the Corrosion Prevention
Act in 2007. One avenue available to successfully combat corrosion in the petroleum industry is the
recent progress made in corrosion prediction applications for petroleum operations. Three such corrosion
computer models have been developed at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. These models are capable
of predicting the physical conditions and corrosion rates inside pipelines and in producing oil and gas wells.
The models are window based and described in this paper. An expert system module was developed, which
adjusts the predicated corrosion rate based on various known reservoir and well subsurface parameters.