Pipeline Companies Research Articles

Machine learning-based outlier detection for pipeline in-line inspection data

Pipeline companies are facing challenges in maintaining the integrity and reliability of their pipelines. They are working towards predictive maintenance using machine learning-based approaches to predicting anomalies. Training machine learning models requires sufficient data. Data quality is therefore becoming important because inaccurate data will lead to an inaccurate or wrong decision on pipeline condition assessment and the following management. This research paper intends to address the data quality issues of pipeline inspection data such as in-line inspection (ILI) data using machine learning models. Different machine learning models developed by random forest regression, linear regression, and nearest neighbors’ methods were tested to detect outliers in the ILI data. In this paper, the ILI data collected from an oil pipeline over a period of 22 years was applied to testing and analysis. To verify the outlier detection results of machine learning models, we used statistical analysis including Z-score method to check and find if there are any gaps in the analysis. It verifies that all these methods show almost the same or very similar results for the detection of the outliers. Hence, this study presents a robust method for the field applications in the pipeline industry.

Integration of Smart Grid and Application of Microgrid Technologies in Western Pipeline Company

Integration of Smart Grid and Application of Microgrid Technologies in Western Pipeline Company

Корпоративное волонтерство как инструмент внутренних и внешних коммуникаций организации

Nowadays, companies are actively introducing corporate volunteering programs at their enterprises. In this re-gard, there is a growing interest in this topic in scientific circles: there are more and more works devoted to the study of this phenomenon as a form of corporate social responsibility. However, more attention is often paid to the social and economic effects of corporate volunteering, and an equally important communication aspect remains undisclosed. This article is aimed at studying the phenomenon of corporate volunteering as a tool of corporate communications. It analyzes the image and reputation effects from the implementation of volunteer programs at Russian enterprises. The empirical basis of the analysis was the results of a study of the nature of information coverage of volunteer activities of a large regional pipeline company in the field of oil and petrole-um products transportation. Conclusion dwells upon the fact that corporate volunteering contributes to strength-ening the information presence of the organization and reinforcing the status of a socially responsible enter-prise.

The Effect of Bundles of Strategic Human Resource Management Pratices on Employee Performance Of Geothermal Development Company in Nakuru County,Kenya

The purpose of the study was to assess the effect of performance appraisal on employee performance of a geothermal development company in Nakuru County, Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive research study. The target population of the study was 1097 employees which comprised 79 top-level employees and 351 middle-level employees and 667 lower-level employees from 17 departments in GDC Nakuru County. The study used Nassiuma’s (2000) formula to get a sample size of 100. The study further adopted a stratified random sampling from which the sample was allocated to various categories according to their relative sizes. The study collected primary data using questionnaires. The questionnaire included both open and closed-ended questions. The pilot study was carried out in Kenya Pipeline Company Nakuru County to assess the effectiveness of the data collection instruments before venturing fully into data collection. This consisted of 11 employees representing 10% of the sample size. The piloted questionnaires were not included in the main study. Cronbach's Alpha was used to determine internal consistency technique. During this initial visit, the researcher explained the purpose of the study to the senior manager in charge of the geothermal development firm in Nakuru County and arranged for data collection. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24 was used to evaluate qualitative data. In this study. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The findings revealed that there is a strong significant positive relationship between performance appraisal and employee performance in Geothermal Development Company (r=0.547 and p<0.05). The study concluded that there is a statistically significant relationship between performance appraisal and employee performance in Geothermal Development Company. From the conclusion the researcher recommended that Geothermal Development Company should strictly adhere to performance appraisal results to ensure employees are rewarded and promoted based on performance appraisal results.

Filter media enhanced electrokinetic remediated crude oil contaminated soil: investigation of its engineering properties and its suitability for road construction

Research have shown how electrokinetic remediation (EKR) technology attempts to tackle the challenge of soil contamination by crude oil. However, the suitability of the resulting remediated soils for use in road construction have not been well reported. This work investigates the engineering properties of filter media enhanced electrokinetic remediated crude oil contaminated soil (COCS) with a view to ascertain its suitability for use in road construction by comparing the performance of charcoal and active carbon as filter materials. COCS collected at a depth of 1m from the Nigerian Pipeline and Storage Company, Kaduna was remediated by using graphite electrodes to pass 1V DC/cm across EKR setups enhanced by incorporating a 1cm thick charcoal and active carbon separately as filter materials across the setups. Average removal efficiencies of 81.4% and 84.6% were obtained against the 78,600 mg/kg oil content of the COCS from charcoal and active carbon filter media enhancements respectively. This showed that active carbon, with higher removal efficiency, is a better filter medium for COCS than charcoal. The compaction and California bearing ratio (CBR) properties of the COCS also improved with the filter media enhanced EKR. However, the CBR values for the filter media enhanced EKR soils only meet the 20% minimum requirements for Type 2 sub-base course materials specified for light trafficked Nigeria roads. As such, charcoal or active carbon filter media enhanced EKR technology can be adopted for remediating COCS for light trafficked Nigeria road construction in areas not subjected to flooding.

State of Art of Pipeline Distribution of Oil Products in Kenya-Threats, Challenges and Prospects

Finally, in 2012, Kenya hit significant commercial oil deposits that could potentially, position it among prospective world oil exporters. Unparalleled expectations from this find is arousing long dead pipedreams of economic bonanza and overnight transformation among all stakeholders. However, to avail this resource to the markets, for the expected fiscal changes to occur, it has to be transported. This paper, therefore, seeks to microscopically review the current status of the pipeline transport of oil products in Kenya in the last decade. A summarized outlook of pipeline oil distribution globally is availed, especially in well-developed oil jurisdictions. This is sequenced with a comprehensive history of oil pipeline transport in the country. The flow mechanism of white and black oil products in pipelines is then briefly addressed in view of the waxy Turkana oil. A sneak preview of the legal landscape on oil pipeline transport in Kenya is likewise highlighted. The current content and context of pipelines, flow of white and black oil products in pipelines, and new pipeline infrastructure are then discussed with Kenya Pipeline Company Limited as the central denominator. Additionally, assertions on the upcoming new crude oil pipeline are evaluated. Finally, it exposes the prospects and challenges in the pipeline transport of oil products and sums up with vials of viable recommendations for its long term progress.

Effect of Ethanol and Acetone Cosolvents in Enhancing Electrokinetic Remediation of Crude Oil Contaminated Soil Obtained from a Pipeline and Storage Company, Kaduna Nigeria

A lot of work has shown that despite the effectiveness of the traditional electrokinetic remediation (EKR) technology in decontaminating soils with different types and amounts of contaminants, it can be enhanced by a number of strategies for extra effective performance. This work presents the effect of ethanol and acetone cosolvents in enhancing EKR of crude oil contaminated soil (COCS), collected at a depth of 1 m from a petroleum pipeline and storage company, Kaduna Nigeria using graphite electrodes to pass 1 V DC/cm across EKR setups enhanced by incorporating 20% ethanol and 20% acetone separately as cosolvents in the anode compartments of the setups. The total petroleum hydrocarbon results showed that the crude oil content of 78,600 mg/kg present in the COCS exceeds permissible limits for soils. Average removal efficiencies of 74.61% and 67.79% obtained from 20% ethanol and 20% acetone cosolvents enhancements respectively showed that 20% ethanol, with higher removal efficiency, is a better cosolvents for COCS than 20% acetone. Although 20% ethanol has been shown to be a better cosolvents compared to 20% acetone, either of them can be incorporated into EKR technology for enhancing the remediation of COCS.

Application of game theory in risk management of urban natural gas pipelines

This paper presents a game theory methodology for risk management of urban natural gas pipelines, which is a collaborative participation mechanism of the stakeholders, including government, pipeline companies, and the public. Firstly, the involvement proportion of stakeholders in risk management under rational conditions is estimated by the static game theory. Subsequently, the system dynamics (SD) simulation is used to establish an evolution game model of stakeholders in risk management under the irrational conditions, in which the stability of the evolution game process is analyzed. The stakeholders’ involvement proportions from the static game model are utilized as the inputs for the evolution game model to simulate the dynamic evolution behavior of risk management strategies with different involvement proportions of stakeholders. Eventually, the dynamic evaluation game can extract an optimal strategy for risk management of urban natural gas pipelines. A case study is used to illustrate the methodology. In essence, this methodology can be extended for implementing risk management of urban infrastructure.

Risk assessment of oil and gas pipelines hot work based on AHP-FCE

A new quantitative risk assessment method for hot work is proposed based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation (FCE). It can help pipeline companies realize the risk management of hot work and further ensure the safe operation of oil and gas pipelines. Taking one natural gas pipeline in China as an example, this paper evaluates the risk of a single hot work in the spring of one natural gas pipeline in a high consequence region. First of all, the risk factors are determined with reference to the job safety analysis (JSA), and then experts were invited to fill out a questionnaire to collect their opinions. According to the results of the questionnaire, AHP is used to calculate the weight coefficients of the evaluation indicators, and FCE is used to evaluate the risk level of hot work. After calculation, the comprehensive risk score of hot work is 40.888. It belongs to a "General risk". This method can not only quantitatively evaluate the risk levels of hot work, but also reasonably sort the importance of various risk factors. It is helpful for the effective management of hot work and provides suggestions for implementing control measures.

Soil degradation and crop yield declines persist 5 years after pipeline installations

AbstractDegradation of natural resources, including increased soil compaction, soil horizon mixing, and decreased crop yields have been common outcomes of underground pipeline installation. However, most of the research documenting the impacts of pipeline installation on soil and crops was conducted before contemporary best management practices were developed and implemented. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of pipeline installation on soils and field crops after a 4‐ to 5‐year remediation period, coinciding with the end of landowner compensation and when sites are considered fully remediated by pipeline companies. We report soil properties and corn (Zea mays L.) and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] yields from three independently operated pipelines at 29 sites across 8 Ohio counties. We observed significant degradation in soil physical properties, such as surface penetration resistance (15.3% increase) and mean weight diameter of soil aggregates (13.6% decrease) in right‐of‐way (ROW) areas compared with adjacent (ADJ) areas, respectively. Soils in ROW showed evidence of soil horizon mixing, with 25.0 g kg−1 higher clay compared with ADJ areas. Soil degradation resulted in decreases of 23.8% and 19.5% in corn yields and 7.4% and 12.5% in soybean yields during 2020 and 2021, respectively. Widespread disturbance persisted 5 years following pipeline installation in soil physical, chemical, and biological properties. Current best management practices of pipeline installation and remediation employed by three companies were insufficient to combat widespread soil degradation and crop yield loss.

The double movement and the triple-helix: Divestment, decommodification, and the Dakota Access Pipeline

This paper investigates divestment movements’ attempts to influence investment decisions. I use the example of #DefundDAPL, which targeted private-sector funding of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), an oil conduit crossing the Missouri River a half-mile from the Standing Rock Reservation. I analyze activists’ engagements with banks as a manifestation of Karl Polanyi's second movement, that is, resistance to environmental destruction and human rights violations that accompany “commodification” (the subordination of social relations to the economy). I identify divestment as a “withdrawing” type of decommodification that restrains free-market dominance by defunding environmentally and socially destructive projects. Next, I explore how investment practices can be analyzed as a “triple-helix” comprised of three intertwined strands—ideologies, power dynamics, and private-sector policies—that pull one another toward commodification and/or decommodification as they coproduce each other in dynamic tension, creating a constantly evolving investment environment. Applying this framework to #DefundDAPL, I examine how activists’ success in mobilizing societal ideologies to paint DAPL as an unethical investment was informed by banks’ concerns about project profitability as well as by place-based conditions and relationships between banks and pipeline companies. Further, I find that private-sector policy changes in response to the DAPL controversy were prompted by evolving societal ideologies yet constrained by interbank power relations. In conclusion, I argue that a triple-helix lens helps unpack the black box of decommodification by revealing complex interactions among ideologies, power relations, and policy-making and demonstrates limits to private-sector initiatives’ ability to impose adequate restrictions on environmentally and socially harmful investment practices.

Protected Zones and Minimum Distances to Main Oil Pipelines (Petroleum Product Pipelines): The Concept, Legal Regime and Meaning for Secure Operation of Main Pipeline Transport Facilities

A significant risk faced by oil pipeline companies in operation of main pipeline transport facilities is violation by third parties of the regime of protected zones and minimum distances to oil pipelines and petroleum product pipelines (collectively referred to as “oil pipelines”). No regulations establishing the legal regime of protected zones and minimum distance zones have been adopted yet. Absence of any regulations triggers law enforcement problems including origination of court disputes. This paper studies the main provisions on protected zones and minimum distances within the framework of their impact on the security of operation of main oil pipelines, life and health of people, analyzes concepts and regimes of the protected zone and minimum distances from the standpoint of the goal of their introduction, brings forward recommendations and proposals for minimization of legal risks.

Auction design for capacity allocation in the petroleum pipeline under fair opening

Auction is a dominant way to allocate transport capacities for the aim of profit, fairness, and transparency. Previous related work focuses on the natural gas pipeline and cannot be applied to the petroleum pipeline for its special technique of transporting multiple batches. This paper designs a bi-level model for capacity auction of the petroleum pipeline, which facilitates fair competition and free flow of petroleum products in market. The upper-level model simulates the decision-making process of pipeline company, and the lower-level one determines if shippers bid up prices for capacities somewhere. A real-world pipeline is taken as a case to explore the impact of different auction designs and proration on capacity allocation. New shippers obtain all the nominations of 18,700 m3 by auction but lost the capacities of 3,523 m3 by proration. Compared to proration, auction leads to a profit growth of 181,545 CNY and 150,019 CNY to pipeline company and new shippers respectively but a decrease of 4,586 CNY to regular shippers. Different orders of offering price lead to different outcomes regarding fairness and revenue. Letting new shippers offer price first is suggested as a base to design auction for capacity allocation since it generates a reduction of 0.2% to regular shippers but an increase of over 12% to others.

Pipeline leak detection based on empirical mode decomposition and deep belief network

Leak detection of an oil pipeline can prevent environmental and financial losses. A method for the cyber-physical system of pipeline leak detection is proposed based on the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and deep belief network (DBN). Experiment data are acquired from an oil pipeline company. The EMD is suitable for noise removal and signal reconstruction from raw pressure signals, and the reconstructed signals are used to establish a DBN model of pipeline leakage. Our proposed method obtains higher-recognition-accuracy results (98% accuracy) and can more effectively identify leak detection than the twin support vector machine (TWSVM), support vector machine (SVM), and back-propagation neural network (BPNN).

Israel’s natural gas sector’s first year with the Chevron Corporation

ABSTRACT Since October 2020 there is a new actor in Israel’s maritime space and energy sector after the Chevron Corporation acquired Noble Energy. This article examines the first year under the headings: financial aspects, regional politics, the UAE and the Abraham Accords, the EastMed natural gas pipeline, security aspects, Chevron and local companies and scandals and environmental aspects. The analysis determines the historical significances and projects ways forward, for a win–win outcome for Chevron and Israel. Chevron has ability to make the EastMed pipeline happen may also have positive ramifications for regional politics. Israel as a regulator will not permit Chevron to gain a larger stake of the gas fields, or even increase prices to the IEC and so to consumers. Israel will aim to ensure that Chevron will not cut corners that could result in labour issues, health and safety dangers, and environmental catastrophe. The Israel Navy has procured four new warships, to meet the gas fields’ direct security needs, permitting a Brown Water doctrine shift while enabling enhanced power projection capability.

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

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.

Influence of Organization Leadership on Employee Performance of Kenya Pipeline Company

Despite the formulation of strategies to improve the workforce performance, the role of organization culture is yet to be determined. The study's main purpose was determining the influence of organizational leadership on employee performance at Kenya Pipeline Company. The study was guided by Resource-Based View Theory and Theory of Leadership. An explanatory research design was followed by the study targeting an estimate of 160 employees according to Kenya Pipeline Company, Human Resource Department. The researcher used Slovin’s formula of the target population to act as the sample size therefore, the sample size for the study comprised of 114 respondents. The main method used to source data was using questionnaires. The data collected was analyzed with the help of IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 23.0 using descriptive and inferential analysis. The analysed data was presented using tables. From the Pearson Coefficient, Leadership (r=0.600) was found to have a positive effect on the employee performance at KPC. The study therefore concludes that leadership affect to a great extent employee performance in terms of engagement, productivity and satisfaction. Leaders in KPC are recommended to develop strategic visions, promote those visions, and instill a sense of commitment to achieve their organizations' ambitions. The study further recommends that KPC should also reinforce the organizational set of principles that define who its employees, customers, and suppliers are, how they connect with one another, and if they think independently when doing their work obligations.

A Long Economic View on the FERC's New Policy Statements on Natural Gas Pipelines

I first contributed to this journal in October 1994, when it was called simply Natural Gas. In those days, great battles raged before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), including between natural gas distributors whose groups I represented—including the 22 distributors in New England, and the natural gas pipeline companies that had historically served them—including Tennessee, Texas Eastern, and Transco. NERA's close involvement generally in regulatory problems involving the 1938 Natural Gas Act (NGA) goes back to the 1950s—particularly the work of my late colleague and friend at NERA, Professor Alfred E. Kahn, on behalf of a group that would later be known as the Associated Gas Distributors (AGD). In such a way, NERA has wrestled with US natural gas industry problems under the NGA for over 65 years. We have the long perspective.

Recognition Method of Pipeline Weld Defects Based on Auxiliary Classifier Generative Adversarial Networks

This study aims to address the problem of poorly generated data quality and slow network training speed in data augmentation of 1-dimensional time domain signals. A data augmentation method for the generative adversarial network based on the time-frequency graph of magnetic flux leakage (MFL) signals is proposed. First, the original MFL is converted into a time-frequency signal graph, which is suitable for the input data of the conventional neural network. Second, to produce an adversarial network combined with auxiliary classification, the label of the original MFL signal is used as the input of this network for data augmentation. Compared with a 1-dimensional time domain signal data augmentation method, the proposed method effectively reduces the number of network training parameters and simultaneously solves the problem of slow training speed in traditional methods. Finally, the proposed method is applied to the identification of MFL signals collected by a pipeline company. The experimental results show that the proposed method can produce higher-quality data and effectively improve the accuracy of weld defect magnetic leakage signal recognition and the speed of network training, while the accuracy rate of magnetic leakage signal recognition is increased from 94.5% of the traditional method to 99.5%, which is feasible for practical engineering applications.

Pipesharing: economic-environmental benefits from transporting biofuels through multiproduct pipelines

As the most potential renewable energy, biofuel energy has become the fourth largest energy source after coal, oil and natural gas. Promoting the extensive application of biofuels is an effective way to reduce carbon emissions. Pipeline is one of the most efficient ways to transport large-volume fuels over long distances. Transporting biofuels through the existing multiproduct pipelines is in line with the requirements of environmental protection, energy saving and low-carbon economy. To determine the surplus capacity of pipelines in a certain period is the premise of adopting this mode to transfer biofuels. This study develops a method for estimating the capacity of pipelines for biofuel transport, accounting for clients’ demand for petroleum products, the capacity limitations of existing pipeline equipment and transport cycle of biofuels in the pipeline. Using the data from practical pipelines, their monthly surplus capacity is within the range of 15 × 104 to 80 × 104 m3. It is turned out that pipeline length, transportation capacity of power equipment and market demand of refined products are the dominating factors for surplus capacity. Assuming varying demand on refined products, sensitivity analysis is conducted to compare the economic-environmental benefits from sharing pipeline’s surplus capacity with biofuel shipment. The simulation results show that pipeline sharing brings about win–win effects for both petroleum and pipeline companies. The petroleum company has a reduction of 1.2%–34.9% in carbon emissions and 0.3%–14.7% in logistics cost, while the pipeline operator increases revenue by 0.4%–33.7%.