Speaker’s name: Ennery Leon
Presentation title: Troubleshooting in Cathodic Protection
Organization: TAQA
Job title: Integrity Lead Upstream
Biography:
Ennery León is a Venezuelan with 20 years of professional experience. He graduated in Chemical Engineering from the University of Zulia, where he also completed his Master's degree in Corrosion. He developed his undergraduate thesis at the Corrosion Studies Centre of the University of Zulia in the field of biofilms associated with microbiologically induced corrosion. This research was complemented in his Master's thesis, where he studied the control of MIC using cathodic protection in Lake Maracaibo. He then spent two years as a researcher at Delft University in the Netherlands. He has extensive professional experience in the petrochemical, steel, and oil industries in the field of corrosion control and process engineering, specializing in failure analysis, materials selection, cathodic protection, coatings, and chemical treatment. He has been part of technical teams for the development and updating of technical standards related to corrosion control in the oil industry. Ennery has worked for companies such as Pequiven (Petrochemicals of Venezuela), T&R Ingeniería, PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela), and Tata Steel in the Netherlands. He currently works at TAQA in the Netherlands, where he serves as Integrity Lead Upstream
He is also the Founder and Managing Director of Corrosion Prevention Services.
Presentation abstract/summary: This presentation provides a practical approach to troubleshooting cathodic protection (CP) systems used to control corrosion on pipelines and other buried or submerged metallic structures. The session covers the fundamentals of cathodic protection, selection of appropriate field surveys in accordance with AMPP/NACE and ISO standards, rectifier inspection and diagnostics, and the interpretation of common system failure symptoms. Participants will learn a systematic troubleshooting methodology that helps distinguish symptoms from root causes, evaluate the performance of CP systems, diagnose transformer-rectifier problems, and identify issues related to coatings, anodes, continuity, isolation, and external interference. The presentation also includes a real-world case study demonstrating how incorrect system polarity led to premature failures and how the root cause was identified and corrected.