CorrosionRADAR’s Monitoring Solution Selected to Support Dow’s Alberta Project
CorrosionRADAR’s data-led corrosion under insulation (CUI) monitoring solution has been selected to help protect critical insulated assets at Dow’s project in Fort...
In late July, CorrosionRADAR attended the API Inspection & Mechanical Integrity Summit in San Antonio. As always, these events provide a great opportunity to assess where our industry actually stands versus what the marketing decks are telling us. A few observations worth sharing.
AI moves past hype
The AI conversation has clearly moved past the hype stage. What stood out this year wasn’t the concept of AI in asset integrity, it was how visible the applications have become across analytics, workflow optimization and even early steps toward autonomous operations. RBI and asset integrity software vendors are building AI in as a core feature now, not a bolt on. The robotics side has come a long way too. Drone based inspection has expanded well beyond visual crawling, with several vendors now offering ultrasonic and radiographic sensing on the same platforms. It’s genuinely encouraging to see how much ground has been covered on the technology side.
Fundamentals remain critical
The old problems are still the old problems. Early corrosion damage detection and prediction remain the hardest part of this job, and nothing at the summit changed my perspective. CUI (corrosion under insulation) is the clearest example. There were roughly fifteen presentations and panels on CUI this year, more than double the number from 2024. That’s not a sign the problem is solved, it’s a sign it’s still one of the biggest unresolved technical issues in our industry, even as the tools to monitor CUI continue to improve.
CUI is no longer hidden but it’s not solved yet
From where I sit at CorrosionRADAR, our efforts to champion the CUI story is clearly delivering change. Remote CUI monitoring keeps gaining ground, and the standards are catching up too. API 583 now references continuous CUI monitoring as part of its inspection guidance, which is a good sign that the codes are starting to reflect where the state of today’s technology. While CUI is more visible than ever before, the real bottleneck remains adoption. The technology exists, and now the standards support it. The willingness of operators and contractors to change inspection practice at scale continues to lag behind the technology and we must all keep working hard to close this gap.
I saw this gap play out first hand when I moderated a panel on CUI management with technology vendors alongside guests from Chevron, Shell and Enbridge. It was the perfect chance to compare notes on where operators are today versus the perception of the industry. There was also a presentation on the global adoption status of CUI monitoring, which lined up with what I heard elsewhere at the summit. The entire asset integrity ecosystem is making real progress, but it remains early days.
The CorrosionRADAR vision
At the API Summit, the CorrosionRADAR team also presented our vision for the future of continuous CUI monitoring. Today we are using AI-powered analytics within our CR:CLARITY software to continuously analyze real-time data from permanently installed sensors together with inspection and maintenance records to transform the potential of CUI monitoring. Using AI, we are demonstrating how we can move the industry from periodic, reactive inspections to a predictive, and prescriptive intelligence-led process. This vision was very well received by both our industry colleagues and our customers who are working with us now to trial our current generation AI technology.
The inspection and integrity management community is a tightknit group of highly skilled professionals, and it was great to reconnect with familiar faces. I left San Antonio with a sense that the industry now recognizes CUI as a strategic business threat, but new technology and process adoption remains a stubborn bottleneck despite the compelling benefits. By identifying emerging corrosion risks early and prioritizing maintenance based on changing asset conditions, operators can make more informed decisions, reduce inspection costs, improve uptime, and prevent failures before they occur. Learn more about CorrosionRADAR vision for Enterprise CUI Monitoring.
Learn more about CorrosionRADAR vision for Enterprise CUI Monitoring.
Author Dr. Prafull Sharma
