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The History of NACE RP0176
Conference Paper · March 2006
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THE HISTORY OF NACE RP0176
Stephen N. Smith
ExxonMobil Production Company
800 Bell, CORP-EMB-2003H
Houston, Texas 77381
Harry R. Hanson
Bay Engineering Co., Inc.
4015 Mischire Dr.
Houston, Texas 77025
ABSTRACT
NACE RP1076, Corrosion Control of Steel, Fixed Offshore Platforms Associated with
Petroleum Production, described recommended practices for corrosion control on fixed offshore
platforms used to produce oil and gas. The document was originally written in 1976 and has been
revised and updated three times. This paper presents the history of the document for the formation of
the original task group through the various updates and up to the status of the current revision.
INTRODUCTION
Quoting from the foreword to the document, which has remained almost completely unchanged
over the years:
Offshore structures represent large capital investments. Structures are being placed in
offshore areas worldwide and are being designed to withstand forces resulting from
hurricanes, arctic storms, tidal currents, earthquakes, and ice floes. Moreover, platforms
structures are currently being placed in deeper waters and, therefore, have become larger,
more complex, and more expensive. Control of corrosion on structures is necessary for
the economic development of oil and gas production, to provide safe support for working
and living areas, and to avoid potential harm to the environment. For the purposes of this
standard, offshore structures are considered to be stationary structures (platforms or
subsea facilities) that are fixed to the sea floor by gravity, piling, and/or mooring cables.
Copyright
©2006 NACE International. Requests for permission to publish this manuscript in any form, in part or in whole must be in writing to NACE International,
Conferences Division, 1440 South Creek Drive, Houston, Texas 77084. The material presented and the views expressed in this paper are solely those of
the author(s) and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association. Printed in the U.S.A.
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RP0176 was written, approved and published in 1976 to provide guidance for the control of
corrosion of these structures. Since that time, it has been cited by regulatory authorities in a number of
areas around the world. Its application has also been expanded outside the stated scope of the document
to provide guidance for the control of corrosion for floating oil production structures, marine docks and
loading facilities and even subsea pipelines.
This paper presents the history of the document from inception to the revision that is currently in
draft form.
BACKGROUND
The first platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were installed in 1948 and 1949. In the 1950’s and
60’s, the industry became very active and many platforms were installed. These platforms were mostly
in 40 to 60 feet of water and were 20 to 40 miles from shore. The technology to design long life systems
were available, but the operators were not interested in making the large investments required for long
life facilities. Cathodic protection for most of the platforms were provided by using 100 pound
magnesium anodes that were hung from platform members by their copper cable. These anodes usually
lasted about a year and crews were constantly replacing expended anodes. In 1962, a huge Gulf of
Mexico lease sale was held and leases in 150 to 300 feet of water were obtained. These deeper waters
made the use of magnesium anodes impractical. Some operators used zinc anodes while others used the
aluminum-mercury anodes that were introduced in 1966. In 1976, the aluminum-indium anodes became
available at the same time that RP0176 was being prepared.
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FIRST EDITION - 1976
In early 1976, a committee was formed to prepare a recommended practice for the control of
corrosion on offshore platforms. The committee was formed as Task Group T-1-1 under Group
Committee T-1. The task group chair was Harry R. Hanson with vice chairs Gordon L Doremus and
John A Burgbacher. Other committee members were:
Donald R. Anthony William F. Gast

Risque L. Benedict Carl E. Hedborg
P.J. Bennett J.W. Loewald
David W. Crawford Stanley E Pape
Jack Davis John Rodgers
O.J. Dunbar Richard M Vennett
The task group was composed of representatives from oil companies, pipeline companies,
consulting firms, coating manufacturers and applicators, and material suppliers.
The task group met for the first time in February 1976 in Houston at Exxon Production Research.
The first meeting resulted in agreement for the structure of the document. Authors were also assigned
for each section.
The task group met two weeks later and all of the authors had completed their assigned sections.
Harry Hanson and Gordon Doremus edited the resulting document. In the editing process, the chairs
found that most of the section authors had written too much. This required the chairs to edit the length
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of the combined text as well as to provide a consistent style. As an example, the section on cathodic
protection interference was originally 10 pages in length. In the final document, Section 7 on
interference ended up as slightly less than one page. Within a week or two of the second meeting, the
edited text was sent to T-1 to be balloted.
The ballot was mailed by NACE to the members of T-1. The members of the task group then
followed up on the mailing with phone calls to each member of T-1 to get their approval. The results of
the phone canvas were forwarded to NACE. There were only a couple of objections/negatives. These
were generally handled by having a task group member visit with the negative balloter on a face-to-face
basis to explain the document.
The T-1 approved document was sent to the Board of Directors and approved in March 1976,
within two months of the first meeting of the task group.
Following Board approval, several thousand copies of the document were printed. These copies
of the new NACE RP0176 were distributed at the Offshore Technology Conference in May 1976, just
five months from inception.
A copy of the document as it was handed out at Offshore Technology Conference is attached in
the Appendix.
1982 REVISION2
Harry Hanson chaired the T-1 task group responsible for the first revision of RP0176. The vice
chairs were Bryan Wyatt and Stephen Smith. The task group only made a few minor changes to the
document prior to the ballot.
The ballot generated a massive number of editorial comments and a few negatives. Most of the
comments and negatives came from the North Sea region, which had not been directly represented in the
original committee. All of the voters were highly supportive of the document, by insisted on changes,
additions or corrections to small points needed to adjust the document for use in Europe. Most of the
negatives were resolved rather quickly. The final holdout was John Morgan, who insisted on a face-to-
face meeting with the task group chair. Morgan objected to referring to the equation for the calculation
of the resistance of a pipeline anode bracelet as the "McCoy equation". It seems that in McCoy's paper,
he had referenced the work of one of Morgan's associates, J.T. Crennell. Morgan insisted that the
equation should rightfully be called the "Crennell equation" and that McCoy's name should be removed.
During the very cordial meeting between Morgan and Hanson, Morgan agreed to the compromise use of
"Crennell's (McCoy's) equation" since most of the industry knew the equation by McCoy's name, not
Crennell.
1994 REVISION3
Stephen Smith chaired T-1-5, the task group responsible for the second revision of the document,
which was announced as available in Materials Performance in May 19944. The 1994 revision resulted
in a number of significant changes to the document. The coatings section had not changed much in the
1982 revision, so major rework was required to update the document. Attempts made to involve T-5 in
the revision process prior to balloting were not successful. However, numerous negative ballots were
3
cast citing the weaknesses and incorrect information in the paints and coatings sections. Some of
negatives provided extensive rewrites of the sections in question as required for a negative ballot to be
valid. These negatives provided the changes needed to update the standard.
Once again, the largest number of comments came from the North Sea, although the individuals
were different. One negative ballot included over 40 pages of comments and recommended changes,
many of which had to do with technical differences between the recommendations in RP0176 and DnV
RP B4015.
To address these comments, the data in Appendix 1 that lists suggested current densities for
cathodic protection by region was expanded to include more areas around the world than had originally
been listed. The concept of initial, mean and final current density requirements was also added to
reduce differences between the two documents and to bring the guidance in RP0176 closer to the design
philosophies described in DnV RP B401.
Perhaps the greatest challenge with this revision, which took a number of years to complete, was
the massive number of committee members voting on the document. The document was balloted to
Group Committees, T-1, T-5 and T-7. T-1, representing the oil and gas production technology was
listed as the Group Committee that owned the document. T-5 was included because they represented the
paints and coatings industry. Group Committee T-7 included T-7L, the unit committee that represented
the offshore cathodic protection industry. The large voting pool tended to generate a large number of
ballots and comments from individuals who were not active in the area, but felt that they needed to have
their say. An example of this could be found in the area of splash zone coatings section. This section
generated a number of negative ballots because the document did not include the specific coating that a
number of small operator's facilities had been using. These voters did not claim to be industry experts,
but felt that if the standard did not specifically address their local practices, then their local regulatory
authority might start asking difficult questions. Several negatives were resolved by pointing out that the
coatings listed were "examples" of the available splash zone coatings. Others insisted that their product
must be listed if the document was viewed as a NACE recommended practice. Since the rules for the
resolution of negative ballots at that time made it difficult to override these negatives, the list of
materials had to be expanded to include options that in some cases had very limited application.
2003 REVISION6
In 1998, Dan Townley volunteered to be the chairman of T-7L-18, (subsequently renamed TG-
170), the committee in T-7L/STG 30 assigned to revise the document starting. Townley added sections
to the document to include the design of cathodic protection systems using the slope parameter method
that had been developed at Florida Atlantic University. The task group took several years to make these
changes, and then just as the document was going to ballot, Townley had a job change that caused him
to leave the industry. The revised document was therefore out to ballot during Corrosion/2003 without a
TG chair. Since NACE was threatening to withdraw the document because the revision was so far
overdue, Stephen Smith agreed to step in as TG-170 chair to carry the document through to approval.
Three negatives were cast. Two of the negatives requested significant changes to the painting
section and the third dealt with the details of the cathodic protection criteria definition. All three
negative balloters were contacted and the NACE threatened withdrawal situation was described. All
three agreed that the regulatory aspects of the document made withdrawal an unacceptable situation.
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They therefore agreed to withdraw their negatives if NACE would immediately begin the revision of the
document using their negatives as the starting basis for revision.
CURRENT REVISION EFFORT
As part of the negative resolution process, Steve Smith also agreed to continue as the chair of the
"new" TG 170 responsible for revision RP0176-2003.
The majority of the issues associated with the previous negatives dealt with the paints and
coatings section. These sections had historically been a problem for the revision task group since the
sponsoring committees were not associated directly with the paints and coatings committees. Therefore,
Smith asked to address STG 04 (Coatings and Linings, Protective: Surface Preparation) at CTW 2003 to
discuss improved participation in TG 170's work on the new revision. Two possible paths were
proposed. STG 04 could either become actively involved in the revision of RP0176 or else the
document could be divided into two standards along STG lines. STG 30 and TG 170 would continue to
be responsible for a reduced RP0176 containing only the cathodic protection sections. STG 04 would
then create a task group to prepare a new document starting from the existing RP0176 paints and
coatings sections. As it turned out, STG 04 was just completing the development of two new standards
on offshore painting and a new standard covering the topics addressed in RP0176 fit nicely into the
series of new painting standards.
The two groups agreed to split the document. STG 30 and TG 170 would keep the RP0176
designation for the cathodic protection segment to maintain regulatory continuity around the world. The
title of RP0176 would also be modified to reflect the new scope. TG 313 was formed under STG 04 to
take the paints and coatings sections from RP0176-03 as the basis for a new document. The chairs of
TG 170 and 313 have been monitoring each other's progress since that time so that the two documents
will be ready for ballot at approximately the same time. This way, the lack of coverage or duplication
upon completion of the first ballot will be minimized.
Currently, both documents are nearing completion. TG 170 is ready to go to ballot as soon as
TG 313 has a draft document suitable to begin the balloting process. TG 313 is meeting during
Corrosion/2006 to work out the final issues for their draft document. Both documents are therefore
expected to be balloted during 2006.
REFERENCES
1. RP0176-76, "Control of Corrosion on Steel, Fixed Offshore Platforms Associated with Petroleum
Production", 1976
Production", 1982
Production", 1994
4. Materials Performance, Vol 33, No. 5, page 78, 1994
5. DnV RP B401, "Cathodic Protection Design", 1993
6. RP0176-03"Control of Corrosion on Steel, Fixed Offshore Platforms Associated with Petroleum
Production", 2003
5
APPENDIX
Historical Copy Only - This Publication either has been superseded by

a more current edition or withdrawn. The content of this publication is
NOT approved by NACE International. This historical document is
made available as a public service to those researching preceding
technology.
Reference should be made to the latest standards published by NACE

International for the most current criteria.
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The History of NACE RP0176

Conference Paper · March 2006

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

THE HISTORY OF NACE RP0176

Donald R. Anthony William F. Gast

CURRENT REVISION EFFORT

Historical Copy Only - This Publication either has been superseded by

Reference should be made to the latest standards published by NACE

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