OIL AND GAS PIPING ENG`G

1 How Pipelines Differ

2 The First Leg
3 How Pipelines Work
4 Oil Pipeline Operations
5 Natural Gas Pipeline Operations
6 Petrochemical and LPG Pipeline Operations
7 Offshore Pipelines
8 SCADA, Controls, and Leak Detection
 Module 1: How Pipelines Differ

The pipeline industry further subdivides crude

oil pipelines into the following categories:
1. Crude oil gathering lines
2. Crude oil main lines
Somewhat parallel, natural gas pipelines fall into
these categories:
 Natural gas gathering lines
 Natural gas transmission lines
 Local distribution lines
Crude Oil Pipelines

 normally made from 2-

inch (in.) to 12-in. pipe.
 Main lines (called a trunk
line) are generally 8-in. or
more in diameter.

Fig. 1–2. Crude oil tank battery at a well site (Courtesy Miesner, LLC)
 Refined Products
Pipelines
The refined products
pipeline value chain
begins at refineries
and ends at
petroleum products
terminals.
Fig. 1–3. Oil product tanks at a pipeline terminal (Courtesy Explorer
Pipeline Company)
 Natural Gas
Pipelines
Natural gas is always injected into
transmission lines as other gas goes by.
Since the gas is more or less fungible
(interchangeable), batching is not
required. As natural gas enters the
main line, commercial adjustments can
be made for the energy content of the
injected natural gas. This might be
Fig. 1–4. Natural gas processing plant (Courtesy ConocoPhillips)
done if it is higher or lower than the
typical 1,000–1,050 British thermal
units (BTUs) per standard cubic foot
(scf ).
 Pipeline
Customers

Natural gas transmission companies have the same generic customers as crude oil
pipelines, such as producers and traders. Instead of refiners,. Natural gas is
transported “as is” from the wellhead all the way to consumers, with the exception
of some minor processing at gas plants.
 Gaslights captured the imagination of cities
around America in succeeding decades, arriving in
2 The First Leg subsequent years in the following cities:
1825 New York City
1829 Boston
Creating Nostalgia
1832 Louisville
 In 1806 in London, the London and Westminster Gas
Light and Coke Company (LWGL&C) began laying 1835 New Orleans
the first gas mains ever placed under a public street. 1836 Philadelphia
 unnatural gas (not the methane eventually tapped in 1843 Cincinnati
underground reservoirs) assumed the name
manufactured gas and sometimes town gas. 1846 St. Louis

 Only a few years later, the Baltimore City Council 1854 San Francisco
received a petition from some entrepreneurial 1867 Los Angeles
Marylanders for a similar franchise. In 1817 they
granted the Gas Light Company of Baltimore a 1872 Minneapolis
contract. 1873 Seattle
The distribution systems, some
fashioned pipelines initially of
hollowed, wooden log segments
(fig. 2–2), with inside diameters as
large as 8 in. Lengths ran from 2 ft
to 8 ft. By the 1820s, British-
designed cast-iron pipe arrived to
replace logs.

Fig. 2–2. Segment of hollowed log used as a gas pipeline joint

(Courtesy Midwest Energy Association; photo by Tom Miesner)
 Oily Beginnings

Col. Edwin Drake - drilling the first so-called

well. He found oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania
Enter Competition in 1859 and single-handedly instigated the
In 1821, a Fredonia, New York blacksmith,
petroleum industry’s own version of the
William Aaron Hart, created a new industry. cosmic Big Bang.
He pounded a few lengths of pipe into the
ground in the vicinity of some strangely
ignitable gas bubbling from a running creek 1862. J. L. Hutchings attempted to
bed. demonstrate his newly patented rotary pump.
He then fashioned a floating, open-bottomed He began by laying a 2-in. cast-iron pipe over
box next to his well and captured the gas as it the hill from the historic Tarr Farm oil field
surfaced. Finally, he ran hollowed log pipes to near Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, to a nearby
a Lake Erie lighthouse a half mile away and refinery.
then to the nearby town.
 Fig. 2–3. Early Pennsylvania pipeline (Courtesy Drake Well
 Nearby Pithole, a town that must have Museum)
been named by someone with an
interesting sense of humor. A consortium
of oilmen and venturers led by Samuel
Van Syckel, called the Oil
Transportation Association (OTA),
placed a 2-in. wrought iron pipeline over a
6-mile (mi) track from an oil field to the
railroad station at Oil Creek (fig. 2–3).

 Three steam-driven pumps provided the

power to deliver a remarkable 1,900
barrels per day (bpd), for which Van
Syckel charged $1 per barrel (bbl). He
undercut the teamsters by $4–$5/bbl.
Riding on his success, Van Syckel built a
parallel line and dropped the charge on
both to 50¢/bbl and still made money.
Fig. 2–4. U. S. natural gas volumes and their disposition. It was not until the
middle of the 20th century that oilmen realized that pumping the gas back into
the reservoir, called repressuring, would return the energy necessary to drive
even more oil out. As late as 1935, 20% of the natural gas in the United States
was flared.

Gaseous Progress
 The Rochester Gas Light Company (RGLC) saw an
opportunity to displace the manufactured gas in its
distribution system with natural gas from a well 25 mi
away.

 By the 1880s, Pittsburgh, by then a city with heavy

industry, became the central focus for natural gas
marketing and pipeline construction.
1879, the
Tidewater Pipeline
Company
completed the first
crude oil trunk line
from western
Pennsylvania. This
was a 115-mi run
to the Philadelphia
and Reading
Railroad depot at
Williamsport (fig.
2–5).
 In 1885, the Mannesman brothers,
Endeavor and Rein-hard and Max, of Germany
Technology devised a machine that could make
pipe with no seams at all.
 1880, Solomon Dresser, an unsuccessful oil driller,
developed a threaded coupling with a rubber O- the Mannesman brothers’ brilliant
ring that effectively and cheaply sealed oil and gas insight has lasted 130 years as a
pipeline connections and made installation easier. method for producing medium-
diameter pipe with thin walls and high
 Anonymous and unheralded pipeline builder, or strength—three good ideas in a row.
pipeliner, fashioned a scraper from a long bolt,
with sheet metal and leather washers the size of
the inner diameter. The pumper inserted the
assembly in the line and pushed it through with a
column of oil behind it.
Fig. 2–6. A pipeline gang installing threaded pipe,
circa 1890. The crews used long tongs to grip
and turn the pipe. (Courtesy API and the
Behring Center of the Smithsonian Institute)

 Still, screwing together joints of threaded pipe

required intensive physical labor (fig. 2–6), even after
large machines were developed to handle the chore.
 1911 the Philadelphia and Suburban Gas Company
finally allowed them to weld the joints together using
oxyacetylene torches.
Problems:
 In the cold of winter, the cast-iron pipe contracted,
pulling threaded joints apart or otherwise cracking. Oil
poured out.
 the summer, the lines expanded and bent themselves
into serpentine shapes, knocking over mailboxes,
telegraph poles, and small trees, and spilling out oil.
 In 1885 Robert Bunsen devised a burner Disturbed Interests
that could effectively mix air and natural
gas to produce an efficient flame. For this  John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company played one
he achieved the same type of immortality railroad against another and against rival oil companies while he
built and acquired a network of pipelines and refineries. By
later enjoyed by Roy Jacuzzi. 1880 he had bullied his way into a monopolistic position
downstream of the oil-producing sector, which by then spread
from Pennsylvania to Ohio and West Virginia. He dictated both
oil prices and railroad tariffs, but he did effect an end to
 Carl Auer von Welsbach in Germany violence in the local communities.
developed a practical gas mantle, which he
patented in 1885. It enabled effective  In 1906 the U.S. government undermined Rockefeller’s control
substitution of natural gas for through pipeline and refinery ownership. It enacted the
manufactured gas lighting. Hepburn Act, which deemed all interstate oil pipelines to be
regulated common carriers.

 After J. L. Hutchings’ first pipeline failed  1911 U.S. Supreme Court decision that broke the Standard Oil
Company into 33 autonomous companies, including 13
mechanically, he had no chance to modify pipeline companies.
 it.
 The Russians
 1885 oil production was gushing from
a mother lode in Balakhan
 Transportation to Baku was only the
small prize. The industry pressed the
Russian government to build a
pipeline from there to the Black Sea,
some 530 mi away (fig. 2–7).
Fig. 2–7. Pipeline route from Baku (solid line) to a warm-water
 The 8-in. line, with its 16 pumping port on the Black Sea
stations, started up in 1906. The line
delivered 10–15 Mbpd of kerosene.
 By 1907, the pipeline industry had sorted itself into several distinct
business models:
 Oil-producing companies, or consortiums of them, built or
acquired their own crude oil pipelines to assure physical access to

Separate Ways the refining sector, even though they were common carriers.
 Independent companies built and ran crude oil trunk lines,
selling transportation as common carriers.
Natural Gas Act of 1938, reinforced the earlier model  Independent companies built crude oil gathering lines and acted
of merchant ownership of natural gas pipelines
as consolidators, or buyers and sellers of crude oil.
 Most oil products pipelines were built and owned by oil
New business models resulted that included: companies or consortiums to gain cheaper access to markets as
 Pipeline companies that only sold natural gas common carriers.
transportation (plus storage and other related
services)  Most natural gas pipelines were built and owned by natural gas
merchants, who purchased gas at the wellhead and sold it to
 A myriad of buyers and sellers of natural gas and LDCs. Few natural gas lines were owned by producers.
its transportation, which included producers, LDCs,
and traders  Natural gas distribution companies bought gas from the natural
 Oil products pipelines that catered to a large sector gas pipeline companies. Many also merged at some point with
of buyers, sellers, and traders the local electricity generating and distributing companies.
 Expansion
Meanwhile technological advances bloomed in the pipeline
sector:
1. Seamless pipe replaced other forms.
2. Electric welded seams replaced threaded joints.
3. Pipeline lengths and diameters doubled and tripled, and line
pressures increased.
4. Steam-driven pumps and compressors gave way to gasoline-
or diesel-driven pumps, or compressors powered by natural
gas.
5. Tractors and trucks replaced mules and horses.
6. Ditching machines replaced picks and shovels.
7. Coated steel extended pipeline life.
8. The causes of cathodic corrosion were identified and Fig. 2–8. Growth of U. S. pipeline mileage. At the end of the 20th
remedied.
century, there were about 160,000 mi of oil piplines, 300,000 mi
9. Electric control boards monitored throughput, pressures, of natural gas main lines, and 1,900,000 mi of natural gas
and leak detection.
distribution lines in place.
10. Telephone lines provided communications.
The Great Offshore
 As early as 1887, the Benson Pipeline crossed
under New York Harbor from the mainland, a
total of 5 mi, to deliver oil to Staten Island
from western Pennsylvania.
 In 1900 a gas main was laid under the
Mississippi River by “pulling” a pipeline across
the 2,100-ft span and sinking it. At its deepest
point it reached 120 ft.
 offshore drilling companies and the
construction companies like Santa Fe and
McDermott built large barges with long
extensions off their sterns.
Fig. 2–9. Pipe-laying vessel. Vessels like this one can lay pipe in water
depths as great as 10,000 ft. (Courtesy Heerema Marine Contractors)
In the 1970s, Algeria had accumulated
enormous natural gas reserves, while Italy had
a burgeoning demand for fuel. Connecting the
two required one of two things:
1. Converting the gas to liquid in multibillion
dollar plants and shipping it to market in
special LNG tankers
2. Building a pipeline connecting the two
countries

By the 1990s, giant vessels were laying oil and

gas pipelines, plus electrical and hydraulic
umbilicals to communicate between wellheads
and production platforms in almost 10,000 ft
of water. Fig. 2–10. The Sicilian connection. In 1974, the subsea
pipeline had to cross a 900-ft trench to connect Sicily to the
Italian mainland and a 1,400-ft channel to North Africa.
 Diversity
 In 1893, Lewis Emery and the flamboyant End of the 1960s, pipelines from
Captain Jacob Jay Vandergrift built a refined
products line from their refinery to a
West Texas to the U.S. Gulf Coast
railhead in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. carried raw make. These mixtures of
the natural gas liquids (ethane,
 During World War II, Nazi submarines propane, butanes, and natural
devastated the seaborne oil traffic between
the U.S. Gulf Coast and the East Coast. gasoline) moved to separation
facilities near the markets.
 Built a 24-in. crude oil line from Texas to
Philadelphia. This line, called the Big Inch
Line, was built in 13 months.
 3. The Transneft pipeline system was built by the USSR’s central
government from central Russia to consumers in its satellite countries.
The USSR’s breakup has resulted in an uneven privatization of this

Shifting Sands pipeline system. Transneft has been unable to separate badly needed
pipeline debottlenecking incentives from government-mandated oil-
production incentives.
4. The TransMed pipeline experienced protracted negotiations between
two national companies and three governments in the run up to
Notorious examples of political disasters have weighed
heavily in planning and negotiations. construction. The conflict was not about the pipeline but over the
price of the gas in it.
1. The pipeline system through the Levant was built in
1932, 1942, and 1952 from western Iraq through 5. The Alyeska Pipeline, though not international, had as its alternative
Syria, Palestine, and Israel to the Mediterranean. It a route through Canada. Ten years of negotiations between the North
was held hostage from time to time by the transit Slope oil producers (BP, Exxon, and Arco) and the U.S. government
countries, sometimes for decades or longer for over environmental, security, and economic interests were ended only
complex political and economic reasons. by an international oil crisis in 1973.
2. The Tapline was built in 1950 from Saudi Arabia 6. The owners of huge natural gas reserves on the Alaskan North
through Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. It was closed
Slope have wrangled with regulators and legislators for more than two
down numerous times for political disagreements
and because of armed conflict. decades about the route of a proposed natural gas pipeline through
Canada to the lower 48 states.
 References

Miller, J. Rembrandt Peale, 1778–1860: A Life in the Arts, Philadelphia: Philadelphia Historical Society, 1985, p. 125.

Aliyev, N. “The History of Oil in Azerbaijan,” summer 1994. Retrieved May 6, 2004, from:
http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/22_folder/22_ articles/22_historyofoil.html