API Stands for American Petroleum Institute, In General the API 5L specification provides standards for pipe suitable for use in conveying gas, water, and oil in the natural gas and oil industries.
The API 5L steel pipe covers seamless and welded steel line pipe. It includes plain-end, threaded-end, and belled-end pipe, as well as through-the-flowline (TFL) pipe, and pipe with ends prepared for use with special couplings.
What are the API Standard Specification for Line Pipe?
The American Petroleum Institute specification API 5L addresses seamless and welded steel line pipe for pipeline transportation systems in the petroleum and natural gas industries. API 5L steel pipe is suitable for conveying gas, water, and oil.
Specifications for API 5L adhere to the International Organization for Standardization ISO 3183, standardizing pipeline transportation systems within the materials, equipment and offshore structures for natural gas, petroleum, and petrochemical industries. When authoring the standards, the technical committee recognized that there are two basic Product Specifications Levels (PSL) of technical requirements and therefore developed PSL 1 and PSL 2. PSL 1 is a standard quality for line pipe where PSL 2 contains additional chemical, mechanical properties, and testing requirements.
Grades covered by this specification are A25, A, B and “X” Grades X42, X46, X52, X56, X60, X65, X70, and X80. The two digit number following the “X” indicates the Minimum Yield Strength (in 000′s psi) of pipe produced to this grade.
