THE PRESIDENT’S LETTER

By Felix Schmidt, 3P Services, Germany

It is a great honor to serve the PPSA as President this year. Mike Kirkwood of T.D. Williamson will serve as Vice President during this period and I would like to welcome our new Directors Scott Greig, Halliburton and Jan Frowijn, ROSEN Group. I would also like to thank Michael Rapp and Graham Jack for their time on the board as well as Jessica Nichols for her leadership as President during the past year. A special thanks goes to Diane Cordell, for her ongoing commitment and her contribution to the success of our association.

We are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the PPSA this month (you may have realized from our special logo). It is bad luck that this is happening during times when COVID-19 is significantly affecting the day to day life and business of most of us. The virus leaves limited possibilities to adequately celebrate or to raise one's glass in a toast to the PPSA.

Prior to the lock-downs in most countries, the golf tournament took place in February in Houston followed by the Annual General Meeting. Thanks to our sponsors and the players for helping us raise funds for Young Pipeline Professional projects. PPSA exhibited at the PPIM conference where it was great to meet with PPSA members and everyone in the industry.

At the AGM members suggested that PPSA should become a thought leader by focusing on key areas in the industry with input from our members, developing these topics and creating a repository of useful information. Following the meeting, the topic the members voted to focus on was ‘Challenges in day to day pigging - difficult to pig lines, unusual products (e.g. ammonia, ethylene, hydrogen, high H2S etc.), lodged pigs, pig tracking etc. We will be calling for presenters to give webinars on the topic and members are invited to submit articles and papers. The main theme of the newsletter is Challenges in day to day pigging.

In March PPSA attended the PTC online conference. It went online at very short notice due to COVID-19 and was very well organized. Also our plans for the future are evolving. We are planning to attend the IPC conference in September (in Calgary or online depending on developments) and will be organizing the annual PPSA seminar in November, which we are currently reorganizing to fit into the new world in which we find ourselves these days. No matter how significant the travel restrictions or negative oil prices may affect our international industry, there certainly will be a big demand for our association and members to enable safe operation of pipelines worldwide for the next 30 years. In this spirit, three cheers for the PPSA and stay healthy.