Rio Tinto Powell Dock CP retrofit

Retrobuoys,™ Timbersleds™ and monitoring

Deepwater was contracted to design and commission an impressed current cathodic protection (ICCP) system to restore protection to the Rio Tinto Powell wharf located in La Baie, Quebec, Canada. Multiple ICCP anode systems and a permanent monitoring system were installed as part of the cathodic protection system.

Powell wharf has had multiple ICCP systems that had been modified throughout the years. Due to the large percentage of failures of anodes, rectifiers, and other vital CP components, the structure no longer had complete protection against corrosion. Due to local environment and operating conditions, the CP systems had exceeded their operational design life and needed upgrading.

Deepwater was contracted to provide a detailed cathodic protection engineering design, product specification, material supply, installation supervision and commissioning of the ICCP systems.

The first phase of the CP retrofit consisted of the installation of eight RetroBuoy™ anode systems, 17 internal anode Timbersled™ assemblies and ten exterior anode Timbersled™ systems. Transformer rectifier units (TRU), anode junction boxes, V-string™ zinc reference electrodes, DR2-CD™ monitoring units and associated cabling were also installed.