NDT Inspection Services in Texas

Short answer: Atlantis NDT provides non-destructive testing inspection across Texas: ultrasonic thickness surveys, phased array (PAUT) and TOFD weld inspection, radiography through radiography crews licensed in Texas, magnetic particle, penetrant, visual and eddy current testing, plus NDE support for API 510 pressure vessel, API 570 piping and API 653 storage tank programmes. All work is performed by ASNT-certified technicians under ASNT NDT Level III oversight, crews are mobilised to your site, and results arrive as a code-referenced digital report.

Texas is not one inspection market but five or six. A refinery on the Houston Ship Channel, a tank battery outside Pecos, an LNG train at Sabine Pass, an aerospace supplier in Fort Worth and a gas processing plant in the Eagle Ford all buy "NDT inspection", yet they ask for different methods, cite different codes and answer to different regulators. This page maps that market region by region, explains which state and federal rules shape inspection scope in Texas, and sets out exactly what Atlantis delivers and what it does not. When you are ready, request a Texas inspection quote with the asset, method, code and dates, and we will come back with questions or a scope.

Where inspection work is in Texas

Direct answer: Texas inspection demand concentrates in the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Bay refining and petrochemical belt, the Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange corridor, the Coastal Bend around Corpus Christi, the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford oil and gas fields, East Texas gas and pipeline country, and the Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio aerospace and manufacturing base. Each region leans on different methods and codes.

Houston, Pasadena, Deer Park, Baytown and Texas City

The Ship Channel corridor from the east side of Houston through Pasadena, Deer Park, Channelview and Baytown down to Texas City and Freeport is one of the densest clusters of refining and chemical capacity on earth. Large refineries such as ExxonMobil Baytown, Deer Park, Marathon Galveston Bay and Valero Texas City sit beside olefins crackers, polymer plants, terminals and the Dow complex at Freeport. Here inspection is governed by mechanical integrity programmes under OSHA's process safety management standard, so the daily work is ultrasonic thickness readings at condition monitoring locations (CMLs) on piping circuits, shear-wave UT and PAUT on repair and tie-in welds, radiography of small-bore and socket welds, MT and PT on nozzles and attachment welds, and API 653 tank-floor and shell work at the terminals that line the channel. Spring and autumn turnarounds concentrate months of scope into a few weeks.

Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange (the Golden Triangle)

Jefferson and Orange counties host some of North America's largest refineries, including Motiva Port Arthur, ExxonMobil Beaumont and Valero Port Arthur, plus chemical plants along the Neches River and LNG export construction around Sabine Pass and Port Arthur. LNG projects bring heavy weld-inspection scopes on stainless and nickel-alloy cryogenic piping, where penetrant testing, radiography and, where the owner and code allow, PAUT and TOFD in place of film are all in demand. Fabrication shops that build pressure vessels, exchangers and spools to ASME Section VIII and B31.3 also need UT, RT, MT and PT on a steady schedule.

Corpus Christi, Ingleside and the Coastal Bend

Corpus Christi combines refining (Flint Hills Resources, Valero and Citgo all operate there), the Cheniere Corpus Christi LNG terminal and a port that has become one of the largest crude export gateways in the United States. That mix produces demand for corrosion mapping and thickness surveys at crude terminals and tank farms, weld inspection on new export infrastructure, and visual and UT inspection of marine and dock structures exposed to a hot, salty climate where corrosion under insulation (CUI) and atmospheric corrosion are constant concerns.

Permian Basin and West Texas

Midland, Odessa and the surrounding counties sit on the most productive oil field in the country. Inspection here means gathering and transmission pipelines (API 1104 girth-weld inspection, UT and RT on new spreads), aboveground storage tanks at terminals and tank batteries, gas processing plants, compressor stations and saltwater disposal facilities. Sour service and produced water drive internal corrosion, so UT thickness and corrosion mapping on tanks, vessels and piping are common scopes. Distances are long, so scopes are planned to cover several sites per mobilisation.

Eagle Ford, East Texas and the Haynesville

South Texas between San Antonio and Laredo carries Eagle Ford gathering systems and processing plants, while East Texas around Longview and Tyler and the Haynesville play toward the Louisiana line run gas gathering, midstream compression and older pipeline networks. Work is weighted toward pipeline welds, vessel and separator thickness surveys, and tank inspection at gathering facilities.

Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin

North Texas has a large aerospace and defence manufacturing base around Fort Worth and Arlington, plus heavy fabrication, power generation and data-centre construction. San Antonio hosts aircraft maintenance at Port San Antonio and military aviation at Joint Base San Antonio. Inspection here is more often weld and structural inspection to AWS D1.1, fabrication NDE to ASME codes and component inspection, with aerospace work governed by customer and NAS 410 requirements. Texas also has two nuclear plants, Comanche Peak near Glen Rose and the South Texas Project near Bay City, where NDE is controlled by owner programmes and ASME Section XI.

NDT methods we deliver in Texas

Direct answer: Atlantis delivers UT thickness and corrosion mapping, PAUT, TOFD, conventional shear-wave UT, radiography via Texas-licensed radiography crews, MT, PT, VT and eddy current. The table maps each method to typical Texas applications and the code or standard usually cited. Final method selection is agreed with your inspector of record during scoping.

Every technique runs on a written procedure reviewed by an ASNT NDT Level III, and every technician is certified under an SNT-TC-1A written practice. Where your site requires its own procedures or qualification demonstrations, we work to those. For method background see our Houston weld inspection and Houston corrosion inspection pages, or the method pages for ultrasonic testing in Houston and radiographic testing in Corpus Christi.

API 510, 570 and 653 inspection support in Texas

Direct answer: Atlantis performs the NDE that API 510 pressure vessel, API 570 piping and API 653 storage tank inspections depend on, such as thickness surveys, weld examination, floor scanning follow-up and visual inspection, and hands documented results to your API-certified Authorized Inspector, who remains the inspector of record and signs the inspection report.

API 510 pressure vessels. For towers, drums, exchangers and reactors across Texas plants we carry out external visual examination, UT thickness at the vessel's CMLs, PAUT or TOFD on welds where cracking or prior repairs are of concern, and MT or PT on nozzles and internal attachments during entries. Readings are reported against the previous survey so your inspector can calculate corrosion rates and set the next interval. See API 510 pressure vessel inspection support and our Houston pressure vessel inspection and Beaumont pressure vessel inspection pages.

API 570 piping. Ship Channel and Golden Triangle plants carry thousands of CMLs per unit. We survey them to your circuit drawings, add scanning at injection points, deadlegs and mix points where your programme calls for it, and support CUI screening where insulation is removed. Results are delivered per CML so they load straight into your inspection data system. See API 570 piping inspection support, Houston piping inspection, Corpus Christi piping inspection and Dallas piping inspection.

API 653 storage tanks. Texas has an enormous tank population, from Houston and Corpus Christi terminals to Permian tank batteries. For out-of-service inspections we perform floor scanning with UT follow-up, shell course thickness surveys, shell-to-bottom and repair weld examination, and nozzle and sump work; for external inspections we survey shell thickness, examine roof, shell, foundation and appurtenances, and take settlement measurements presented against API 653 Annex B. See API 653 tank inspection support and Houston tank inspection.

What we do not do: Atlantis does not sell risk-based inspection (API 580/581) or fitness-for-service (API 579) assessments. Our reports give your engineers clean, traceable data; the integrity decisions built on it stay with your programme.

Turnarounds, shutdowns and planned inspection

Direct answer: On the Texas Gulf Coast most inspection volume is planned months ahead around spring and autumn turnarounds. Atlantis joins the planning stage, agrees methods and procedures, and mobilises crews to your site on dates fixed during scoping, so NDE does not become the critical path when equipment opens.

A turnaround inspection scope usually has three layers. Pre-shutdown work is done on-stream: thickness surveys, PAUT or radiography of welds that can be examined hot or in service, and external visual inspection, which together shrink the list of items that must be opened. Shutdown work is everything that needs entry or isolation: vessel internals, tank floors, exchanger bundles and welds behind insulation. Post-repair work is the re-examination of every repair weld before the unit returns to service. We help you sequence those layers so that scope moves out of the outage window wherever the code and your inspector allow.

Practical points that matter in Texas: summer heat limits couplant choice and working hours on exposed tank shells; hurricane season (June to November) can move dates; and refinery access requires site-specific safety orientations and contractor prequalification that we complete ahead of mobilisation. Outside the big refineries, many Permian and Eagle Ford operators run rolling inspection programmes instead of turnarounds, so we schedule multi-site campaigns where one crew covers several tank batteries or compressor stations per trip. Tell us your dates early and we will build the plan around them. Plan a Texas turnaround inspection scope.

Texas regulations that shape inspection

Direct answer: In Texas, boilers are regulated by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) Boiler Program, radiography by the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) Radiation Control Program, intrastate pipelines by the Railroad Commission of Texas with PHMSA, and plant mechanical integrity by federal OSHA's PSM standard. Tanks fall under EPA SPCC and, for petroleum storage, TCEQ rules.

Boilers and pressure vessels: TDLR

Texas boilers are registered and inspected under the Texas Boiler Law (Health and Safety Code Chapter 755), administered by the TDLR Boiler Program, with inspections by state inspectors or authorised inspection agencies. Unlike many states, Texas does not run a general state inspection programme for unfired pressure vessels. In practice that means vessel inspection in Texas is driven by OSHA PSM mechanical integrity requirements, insurer requirements and owner-user programmes built on API 510, which is why plants rely so heavily on documented NDE data. Confirm the status of any specific item with TDLR.

Radiography: DSHS Radiation Control and Agreement State status

Texas is an NRC Agreement State, so radioactive material licences and industrial radiography rules are administered by the DSHS Radiation Control Program rather than by the NRC directly, and individual industrial radiographers must hold Texas certification. Atlantis does not claim to hold a Texas radioactive material licence; radiography on Atlantis scopes is performed by radiography crews licensed in Texas, working to Atlantis procedures and reviewed under our Level III. Where radiation exclusion zones would disrupt a live unit, PAUT or TOFD may be an alternative if your code and owner accept it.

Pipelines: Railroad Commission of Texas and PHMSA

Despite its name, the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) regulates intrastate oil, gas and hazardous liquid pipeline safety through its pipeline safety programme, acting as PHMSA's state partner, while PHMSA regulates interstate lines directly under 49 CFR Parts 192 and 195. Girth-weld inspection on new construction normally follows API 1104. See our pipeline inspection services and Houston pipeline inspection pages.

Process safety and tanks

Texas private-sector employers fall under federal OSHA; the process safety management standard (29 CFR 1910.119) requires written procedures, inspection and testing following recognised and generally accepted good engineering practice, and documentation of each inspection for covered process equipment. Aboveground oil storage is subject to EPA's SPCC rule (40 CFR Part 112), which expects tank integrity testing to an industry standard such as API 653 or STI SP001, and TCEQ administers state petroleum storage tank rules. EPA's risk management programme applies to many of the same facilities.

Inspection reports clients can use

Direct answer: Every Atlantis inspection in Texas produces a digital report built in our own reporting platform: each reading, indication and photo tied to the asset, location, procedure, technician certification and instrument calibration, with acceptance criteria quoted from the governing code. Reports are reviewed under ASNT Level III oversight before release.

Inspectors of record and auditors reject reports for predictable reasons: thickness readings that cannot be traced to a CML, indications without a reference to the procedure and acceptance criterion used, technicians whose certification cannot be shown, and instruments with no calibration record. Our reporting software is designed around those failure points. Data is captured in the field (offline where the unit has no connectivity), structured per asset and per location, and exported in formats your inspection data management system can import. Read more about the platform on our NDT inspection software page, or compare options in best NDT reporting software 2026.

Because the same company also builds software, inspection data does not have to stop at a PDF. If you want, the results can feed a business system for scheduling, certifications and invoicing through Atlantis ERP, or be shown on a 3D model of the unit in our digital twin platform; see also digital twins in Texas. That route from Level III-led inspection to digital report to optional twin is not offered as one package by the large inspection firms.

Cities we cover across Texas

Direct answer: Atlantis mobilises inspection crews to client sites anywhere in Texas. Atlantis has no physical office in Texas, so crews travel to your plant, terminal, yard or right-of-way, with the schedule agreed during scoping. The pages below cover specific Texas cities in more depth.

• Houston and the Ship Channel: third-party inspection in Houston, tank inspection, pipeline inspection, Deer Park, Baytown, Pasadena, Texas City and Freeport.
• Golden Triangle: third-party inspection in Beaumont, Beaumont tank inspection, Beaumont weld inspection and Port Arthur.
• Coastal Bend: third-party inspection in Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi tank inspection and pipeline inspection.
• Permian Basin: third-party inspection in Midland, Odessa and McKee in the Panhandle.
• North and Central Texas: Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio, plus Dallas tank inspection and Dallas weld inspection.
• West and East Texas: El Paso, Longview and the Eagle Ford and Haynesville fields by arrangement.

Related Texas hubs: NDT consulting in Texas for Level III services, written practices and procedures, and NDT training in Texas for ASNT SNT-TC-1A-based technician training.

How to request inspection

Direct answer: Send the asset, method, location, governing code, dates and deliverable you need. Atlantis replies with clarifying questions or a scoped quote, confirms procedures and technician certifications, mobilises the crew on the agreed date and delivers a Level III-reviewed digital report.

1. Tell us the job. Asset type (vessel, piping circuit, tank, pipeline, structure), method if known, site location in Texas, governing code (API 510/570/653, ASME, API 1104, AWS D1.1), target dates, quantity and the report format you need. Send your Texas RFQ.
2. Scoping call. We confirm the method and technique, access (scaffold, rope access, insulation removal, entry permits), site safety requirements and whether radiography or an ultrasonic alternative suits your unit.
3. Quote and procedures. You receive a scope and quote, plus the procedures and technician certifications for review by your inspector of record.
4. Mobilisation. Crews complete site orientation and mobilise on the date agreed during scoping.
5. Inspection and daily updates. Findings that need immediate attention are reported to your representative the same shift.
6. Report. A Level III-reviewed digital report, traceable to code, procedure, technician and instrument.

Frequently asked questions about NDT inspection in Texas

Which NDT inspection services does Atlantis offer in Texas?

UT thickness and corrosion mapping, PAUT, TOFD, conventional UT, radiography through Texas-licensed radiography crews, MT, PT, VT and ET, plus NDE support for API 510, API 570 and API 653 inspection programmes and pipeline inspection. Everything runs under ASNT Level III oversight.

Do you have an office in Houston?

No. Atlantis does not operate a physical office or lab in Texas. Crews are mobilised to your site in Houston or anywhere else in the state, and the schedule is agreed during scoping.

Can you perform API 653 tank inspections in Texas?

We perform the NDE an API 653 inspection relies on: floor scanning with UT follow-up, shell thickness, weld examination and settlement measurement. Your API 653-certified Authorized Inspector remains the inspector of record and signs the report.

Are pressure vessels inspected by the state of Texas?

TDLR regulates boilers. Texas does not run a general state inspection programme for unfired pressure vessels, so vessel inspection is driven by OSHA PSM, insurers and owner-user programmes, usually based on API 510. Confirm specific items with TDLR.

Who regulates industrial radiography in Texas?

Texas is an NRC Agreement State. The Department of State Health Services Radiation Control Program licenses radioactive material and certifies industrial radiographers. Radiography on our scopes is done by crews licensed in Texas.

Can inspection be done without shutting the unit down?

Often, yes. Thickness surveys, external visual, many weld examinations and some corrosion mapping can be done on-stream, subject to temperature limits and your site's permits. Doing this before a turnaround reduces the scope that must wait for the outage.

How much does NDT inspection cost in Texas?

Atlantis quotes on request. Cost depends on method, number of locations or welds, access (scaffold, insulation removal, entry), travel to the site, crew size, schedule and the report format required. Send the scope and you will get a written quote.

How far ahead should we book for a Gulf Coast turnaround?

As early as your scope is known. Turnaround seasons compress demand for qualified technicians, so agreeing methods, procedures and dates during your planning phase gives the best chance of the crew and equipment you need.

Who regulates pipelines in Texas?

The Railroad Commission of Texas regulates intrastate pipeline safety as PHMSA's state partner; PHMSA regulates interstate pipelines directly under 49 CFR Parts 192 and 195. Welds on new lines typically follow API 1104.

Will our inspector or auditor accept your reports?

Reports quote the procedure, acceptance criteria and code, list technician certifications and instrument calibration, and are reviewed under ASNT Level III oversight, which is what inspectors of record and auditors look for. Agree the report format with us during scoping.

Do you work in the Permian Basin and other remote areas?

Yes. We plan campaigns that cover several tank batteries, compressor stations or pipeline sections per mobilisation across West, South and East Texas.

Do you offer RBI or fitness-for-service assessments?

No. Atlantis does not sell API 580/581 risk-based inspection or API 579 fitness-for-service assessments. We provide the inspection data those programmes use.

Get a Texas inspection scope

Whether you have a single vessel due for its API 510 external, a tank coming out of service at a Corpus Christi terminal, a turnaround weld list in Baytown or a pipeline spread in the Permian, the starting point is the same: tell us the asset, method, code and dates. Get a quote for NDT inspection in Texas, or book a call with our ASNT Level III to talk through method selection first. Affordable. Accessible. Fully customizable. Also see all inspection services.

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