The 2021 IMPACT Canada Study

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• In 2021, the Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP) released the 2021 IMPACT Canada Study, which became a valuable supplement to Shipilov’s study, titled “What Corrosion Costs Canada; Or, Can We Afford to Ignore Corrosion?” which was published by the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) in 2009. In 2009, Roger Staehle called Shipilov’s study “certainly the best exposition of the problem of corrosion cost.”

• Based on Shipilov’s estimate, the 2021 IMPACT Canada Study stated that “Canada’s direct cost of corrosion is estimated to be $51.9 billion [USD], amounting to 2.98 percent of Canada’s 2019 gross domestic product.” 

  • ​Note: The statement has a grave (costly) mistake. When Shipilov estimated the corrosion costs (for the government of Canada), he did it in Canadian dollars (CAD), not U.S. dollars. It means that Canada’s estimated annual cost of corrosion was approximately $52 billion (CAD) in 2019 and not $63.26 billion (CAD), as wrongfully claimed in the 2021 IMPACT Canada Study. Unfortunately, this unnecessary mistake has spread all over the Internet.

  • It is worth noting that Shipilov’s study also estimated that 15 to 35% of the annual corrosion cost, or from $7.8 billion to $18.2 billion in 2019 dollars, could be saved if available corrosion control practices were utilized and applied. The fact that the potential saving ($13 ± 5.2 billion) and the mistake made in the IMPACT Canada Study ($11.26 billion) are of the same magnitude makes this Study less valuable.

• In addition, the IMPACT Canada Study “highlights the risks associated with aging infrastructure. These risks have tremendous costs to not only that infrastructure but to productivity and to the lives of citizens. It is imperative that corporations and governments take a broader view of these risks and the benefits of corrosion mitigation methods, and the financial implications of corrosion-related failures.” All this had been discussed more than a decade earlier in the Introduction that Shipilov wrote for Minimizing Infrastructure Corrosion, the book published by NACE International (Houston, TX) in 2009 and in the interview “Exposing the Cracks: Sergei Shipilov Reveals the Perils of Corrosion,” which he gave to CIM and that was published in the March/April 2013 issue of CIM Magazine.