Improving Energy Efficiency of Main Oil Pipeline Systems by Method of Multidimensional Network Optimization of Oil Flows

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the organization of oil’s traffic from various oilfields through a system of main pipelines adapted to control the rheological properties of the pumped product due to rational oil blending of various oilfields at the nodal points of the pipeline system – at oil pumping stations with storage facilities. The current trend of increasing high-viscosity and high-pour-point oil production and the urgent need of their main pipeline transport are the main problem of our research. Its solution will provide an oil-transfer system from various oilfields that will minimize the total energy consumption for oil pumping. To determine the blending parameters at the nodal points we suggest to use the standard multidimensional optimization algorithm: the simplex method as the main calculation module. The objective function is presented in the form of total energy consumption for oil pumping, depending on the concentration of oil blending at the nodal points of the main oil pipeline system. We propose a method for calculating the objective function for any branched main oil pipeline system using algorithms for constructing a blending tree and determining its properties using the tree traversal algorithm. The issues of determining the limits of possible blending based on mass balance and quality reserve preservation of oils that delivered to consumers were also considered in our paper work. As an example, we solved this problem for an element of a main oil pipeline system with four oil blending nodes in the case of an oil viscosity increase of one of the suppliers. Carrying out multidimensional optimization of energy consumption for this system made it possible to increase its energy efficiency by more than 2%.