A demonstration of sustainable pipeline routing optimization using detailed financial and environmental assessment

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The selection of optimal pipeline routes should consider the costs for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of all the routing alternatives. The cost analysis of each alternative route requires substantial geospatial information on slopes and elevations, land use, soil types and other features. In addition to financial costs it is necessary to consider the sustainability aspects, including public safety and environmental impacts, if the pipeline passes near populated areas or if it crosses with natural habitats. This work uses an available computer-aided design tool to automate the routing optimization process. The optimal search follows Simulated Annealing to obtain a set of near-optimal pipeline routes and designs. This optimizer is able to consider a large variety of static geospatial features, conduct detailed hydraulic and cost calculations, and accommodate models for the evaluation of environmental impacts. Cost calculations are in accordance to widely recognized procedures used in pipeline design practice. For the quantification of environmental impacts, this study defines a cost function and proposes a simple implementation using geospatial data from CDDA and the Natura. The above are herein applied on the routing optimization of a crude oil pipeline, to demonstrate how financial and environmental criteria can be considered jointly at the early design phases of a real scale project. The pipeline is over 110 km long. The considered terrain involves areas of different land use, protected areas, cities and other infrastructures, seismic faults and Seveso plants. The data needed for these calculations are obtained from many geospatial data layers. The paper describes in detail the fusion procedures to pretreat the data and facilitate calculations of financial costs and environmental impacts. Results are obtained over a range of control variables to depict the trade-offs between the two criteria and other design options. The obtained results compare favorably with the routing proposed by the pipeline company.