Abstract Due to unforeseen operation errors or natural disasters, off-station pipelines may undergo emergency shutdown operations, necessitating a focus on flow assurance during the shutdown and restart process. Moreover, energy saving and emission reduction have become the focal points in the transformation of oilfield enterprises. This paper formulates a method for predicting the flow status during shutdown and restart of off-station pipelines based on the liquid conservation law, and the characteristic equations are solved by the characteristic line method. A comparative analysis is conducted on the operation rules of shutdown and restart for oil-water mixing transportation and dewatering processes under different water cuts. A typical off-station pipeline in a transfer station is selected as the case study object. The results indicate that due to the lower station heating required for the oil-water mixing transportation process, this process saves 44.3% of costs compared to the dewatering process. As the water cut increases, operation costs decrease and then increase, with the total cost of the 50% water cut scheme being the most economical. This study provides a reference for the safe operation and energy-saving management of off-station pipelines in the future.