The global pipeline pigging services market is anticipated to witness significant growth over the coming time period owing to its increasing application across various end-use industries such as chemical, and oil & gas among others. Pigging is an important aspect of pipeline maintenance and ensures smooth operation of the pipeline.

The pigging process generally refers to a technology that utilizes specialist projectiles that recover, instead of wasting residual liquids in industrial tubing or pipelines. The operators and owners of pipeline normally utilize pigs to ensure the purity of the product, identify pipeline faults, preparation for pre-commissioning as well as inspection testing, and to eliminate any unwanted materials and items from the line.

The process of pipeline pigging is managed without interfering with the flow of the product present in the pipe. Pipeline pigging is utilized in different industries which includes lube oil, chemical, oil & gas plants, and hygienic applications such as food or pharmaceutical.

In addition, selection of the right pig for the pipeline in a given application requires a lot of experience. The key purpose of pipeline pigs is to ensure that the pipe is clean as well as free from obstacles. The pig is normally spherical or cylindrical to assist in movement as well as effective cleaning.

In the pipeline pigging process, the pig is inserted into the pipe by using a pig trap. A similar kind of pig receiver or trap is situated at the end of the pipe in order to obtain the pig when it has travelled the length of the pipeline. Some of the pipeline pigging applications where the process is used include water pipelines, crude oil pipelines, process pipelines, new gas transmission pipelines, mining & process slurry pipelines.

The global pipeline pigging services market is bifurcated in terms of service, application, end-use, and regional landscape.

In terms of application, the overall pipeline pigging services market is categorized into metal loss/corrosion detection, geometry measurement & bend detection, crack & leakage detection, internal cleaning, and others. Growing demand for spillage prevention technologies will drive the service adoption for geometry measurement & bend detection application segment.

Other applications of pipeline pigging services include, curvature monitoring, pipeline profile, photographic inspection, and mapping amongst others.

From a regional frame of reference, the MEA pipeline pigging services market will witness growth owing to the growing oil & gas production coupled with significantly expanding pipeline network. Increasing focus of pipeline operators to improve flow efficiency will stimulate the service adoption across the Latin America region.