Cathodic protection guards buried steel — pipelines, tanks, and structures — from corrosion by connecting the asset to a more easily corroded sacrificial metal called an anode. Over time the anode is consumed and must be replaced to keep protecting the asset.
Installing or replacing an anode means excavating right alongside a coated steel pipe — the one structure on site you cannot afford to damage. OE crews use pressurised water to liquefy soil while a high-flow vacuum extracts the slurry, exposing the pipe and the anode bed without any mechanical tool ever contacting the asset. A single gouge to a pipe's coating creates exactly the kind of bare-metal corrosion site the cathodic protection system exists to prevent — so the excavation method matters as much as the anode itself.