Season’s Kickoff

April 28, 2025

Spring is a fun time of year. You might associate it spring cleaning or yard work. In southeast Michigan many get their Boats in the water ready for Walleye fishing. But at R.L. Coolsaet, it means it's time to get ready to pig.

Pipeline pigging is a process of cleaning or inspecting pipelines using a pig. Pigs can be made of a variety of materials, and are pushed through the line using gas, water, or sometimes the product run in the line.

 Some say it's called that because the sound it makes traveling through the pipeline, others say it's because it stands for "pipeline inspection gauge." Having been in the industry as long as we have, we assume the name came from the noise, and the acronym later when someone clever enough came up with it.

Either way, we are fortunate enough to be working through some permanent pig launcher/receiver assemblies with a customer. In the past they have used temporary equipment to perform in line inspection every 7 years, this year it's in the budget to make this equipment permanent. We have been building the barrels of the pig launcher and receiver in our fabrication shop, prepping for hydrotest at which point they will be installed onsite prior to this year's pig runs.

Regardless of the customer, the process is similar. Make up the plan in the winter, Build up in the spring, pig the lines in the summer, when customers need less gas or product, and finally in the fall perform direct assessment digs and correct issues found on the pig reports. It's a large part of our work year and an exciting process to be a part of. 

This is the big kick off to our Construction season and we are fortunate to have plenty of work to perform. As you may notice, we have just updated our website. We hope to keep this blog active to educate those who come across it and stay up to date on what's going on with the industry. Thanks for reading.