Experiences in Establishing Trustworthy Digital Repositories Within a Large Multi-National Pipeline Company

Traditionally business areas within an organization individually manage data essential for their operation. This data may be incorporated into specialized software applications, MS Excel or MS Access etc., e-mail filing, and hardcopy documents. These applications and data stores support the local business area decision-making and add to its knowledge. There have been problems with this approach. Data, knowledge and decisions are only captured locally within the business area and in many cases this information is not easily identifiable or available for enterprise-wide sharing. Furthermore, individuals within the business areas often keep “shadow files” of data and information. The state of accuracy, completeness, and timeliness of the data contained within these files is often questionable. Information created and managed at a local business level can be lost when a staff member leaves his or her role. This is especially significant given ongoing changes in today’s workforce. Data must be properly managed and maintained to retain its value within the organization. The development and execution of “single version of the truth” or master data management requires a partnership between the business areas, records management, legal, and the information technology groups of an organization. Master data management is expected to yield significant gains in staff effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. In 2011, Enbridge Pipelines applied the principles of master data management and trusted data digital repositories to a widely used, geographically dispersed small database (less than 10,000 records) that had noted data shortcomings such as incomplete or incorrect data, multiple shadow files, and inconsistent usage throughout the organization of the application that stewards the data. This paper provides an overview of best practices in developing an authoritative single source of data and Enbridge experience in applying these practices to a real-world example. Challenges of the approach used by Enbridge and lessons learned will be examined and discussed.

A Comparison of Double Block and Bleed Technologies

Double Block and Bleed is a term often used in the oil and gas industry to define a level of isolation sufficient to perform maintenance activities. The true definition relates to incumbent valves providing two proven levels of isolation against the outboard pressure to permit breaching of containment in the isolated pipe. This paper assesses how temporary isolation devices can provide equivalent isolation where incumbent valves do not exist at appropriate locations in the system. It reviews the different interpretations of Double Block and Bleed used within the industry and compares how different isolation devices are assessed in relation to the level of isolation they provide. It will reference several examples from around the world of where temporary isolation devices have been used to replace valves and perform repairs in trunk pipelines without depressurising the whole pipeline. It will also cover examples of isolating live process pipe to perform maintenance activities outside plant shutdown.

Simulation of Liquid-Gas Replacement in Commissioning Process for Large-Slope Crude Oil Pipeline

Pipeline commissioning, which is a key link from engineering construction to production operation, is aim to fill an empty pipe by injecting water or oil to push air out of it. For a large-slope crude oil pipeline with great elevation differences, air is fairly easy to entrap at downward inclined parts. The entrapped air, which is also called air pocket, will cause considerable damage on pumps and pipes. The presence of it may also bring difficulties in tracking the location of the liquid head or the interface between oil and water. It is the accumulated air that needed to be exhausted in time during commissioning. This paper focuses on the simulation of liquid-gas replacement in commissioning process that only liquid flow rate exists while gas stays stagnant in the pipe and is demanded to be replaced by liquid. Few previous researches have been found yet in this area. Consequently, the flow in a V-section pipeline consisted of a downhill segment and a subsequent uphill one is used here for studying both the formation and exhaustion behaviors of the intake air. The existing two-fluid model and simplified non-pressure wave model for gas-liquid stratified flow are applied to performance the gas formation and accumulation. The exhausting process is deemed to be a period in which the elongated bubble (Taylor bubble) is fragmented into dispersed small bubbles. A mathematical model to account for gas entrainment into liquid slug is proposed, implemented and incorporated in a computational procedure. By taking into account the comprehensive effects of liquid flow rate, fluid properties, surface tension, and inclination angle, the characteristics of the air section such as the length, pressure and mass can be calculated accurately. The model was found to show satisfactory predictions when tested in a pipeline. The simulation studies can provide theoretical support and guidance for field engineering application, which are meanwhile capable of helping detect changes in parameters of gas section. Thus corresponding control measures can be adopted timely and appropriately in commissioning process.

New Method for In-Trench Pipeline Support

Protection of the pipe during and after pipeline construction is of paramount importance for safety and pipeline integrity. Areas of rock and stone are often encountered during construction of new pipelines. Even with modern pipeline coatings, additional protection for the pipe is necessary where rock or stone exposure is significant. Historically, additional pipe protection used in these types of situations is achieved through adding either a significant layer of sand or select backfill above and below the pipeline (sand padding) and/or by attaching a high-impact resistant, poly-type rock shield around the pipeline during the pipeline installation process. To accommodate sand padding, some form of intermittent support of the pipeline is generally required to elevate the pipeline off the trench bottom. Similar intermittent support is also recommended practice when using poly-type rock shields to keep the pipeline from fully resting on trench rocks. Current methods of in-trench support involve sand piles, sand bags, spray foam and individually formed foam pillows — each with drawbacks: i) Sand Piles are difficult to install and often oval or dent the pipe when improperly placed. ii) Sand bags require hand placement for proper support. In open trenches, this can be time consuming and unsafe. Improper placement can cause the pipe to oval or dent. iii) Spray-in foam is considered to be an obstruction of cathodic protection currents. Newly constructed pipelines full of hydrostatic test water and one metre cover can cause foam to compress excessively. iv) Foam pillows are light and easily placed — but can float out of position and compress or crack under heavy loads. As with all foam, cathodic shielding is always a concern. A new, engineered method of in-trench pipeline support is now available — the Structured Pipeline Pillow (SPP). SPP’s are injection molded and made from high strength, environmentally inert polypropylene or polyethylene resins. Designed to support any size pipeline, SPP’s are most effective with larger diameter, heavier pipelines. One SPP is engineered to carry a single 40′ joint of heavy wall pipeline filled with hydrostatic test water. Compared with current methods, SPP’s: i) Stack tightly for transport. ii) Are light enough for installation from outside the trench and resist floatation when ground water is present. iii) Help ensure the pipeline is centered in the trench during the pipeline installation. iv) Maintain long-term pipe clearance above rocky trench bottoms. v) Ovality and denting concerns are reduced. vi) Allow cathodic protection an easy path to the pipeline. vii) Will never biodegrade. In their extended stacking mode, SPP’s tested well as an effective alternative to wooden skids for many situations such as pipe stockpiling; stringing along the rights-of-way (ROW); and even for some low level skidding during the welding process.

A System Based Approach to Achieve Long Term Integrity of Gas Facilities

In today’s challenging environment, the priority for many oil and gas operation companies is to design, build and safely operate facilities at optimum cost efficiency. This means that new facility designs must consider critical facility integrity and that existing facilities are operated well beyond their intended design life. Main gas transmission systems are now some 50 years old and operate for longer periods than anticipated during design and construction for reasons such as; the transition to renewables with another 50 years of service foreseen, and; gas transmission systems that operate satisfactorily, have very low failure rates and for which the planned safe life time extension is expected to be the lowest cost option.

A Method to Determine the Safe Time for High Waxy Crude Pipeline With Uncertainty

More than 80% crude oils produced in China has a high content of wax. Pipeline transportation for such high waxy Chinese crude has a serious safety risk due to its characteristics of high gel point (up to 30 degree) and high viscosity below the wax appearance temperature. In the case of pipeline shutdown the crude cools down. After a certain amount of time, depending on the crude oil properties, the crude oil temperature plot file, the hydraulic data as well as the pipeline construction and environmental related data, the required pressure to restart the pipeline might exceed the maximum allowable operation pressure (MAOP) which makes the restart of operation become very difficult or even impossible. To mitigate the safety risk in case of the pipeline shutdown or to avoid congeal accident, determining the safe time after which the pipeline is still able to restart is necessary. However, the complexity of the presented problem lies in the uncertainty of the operation parameters and the environmental related data, such as the uncertainly of the flow rate and natural temperature. A method is developed to predict the safe time based on the uncertainty of parameters. In the method, the field data is firstly collected, then processed and analyzed to obtain the static rules of these data. By doing so, the complexity of uncertainty is successfully handled. The method is then applied to two pipelines, the results show that the safety of the pipeline is ensured and the energy consumption is also significantly reduced.

Conservation Offsets and Pipeline Construction: A Case Study of the TMX Anchor Loop Project

When Terasen Pipelines (later Kinder Morgan Canada) sought to loop its Trans Mountain pipeline through Canada’s Jasper National Park and British Columbia’s Mount Robson Provincial Park, both being components of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage site, the company faced formidable regulatory and public interest obstacles. However, the company and several environmental groups agreed not to test the strength of their respective uncertain legal positions, but to work co-operatively with each other and with park managers. The motivating goal was to design into the looping project some aspect of environmental improvement that would result in a net benefit to the ecological conditions of the two parks, more than compensating for the residual disturbance which would be caused by the looping after mitigation. The central concept was that of a “conservation offset” (also known as “biodiversity offset”), which has been defined as: “conservation actions intended to compensate for the residual, unavoidable harm to biodiversity caused by development projects, so as to ensure no net loss of biodiversity.” This paper reviews the history of the discussions and planning which took place, considers the adequacy of the outcomes, and suggest lessons for using conservation offsets as a means to align proponent and stakeholder interests and improve environmental outcomes for linear projects beyond the prospects offered by mitigation alone.

Optimization of Valve Placement in Liquids Pipeline Systems

Many considerations go into the design of liquid pipelines relative to the placement of valves. Proper consideration of this issue must address not only minimization of capital costs, but the minimization of potential environmental and safety consequences. Critical to minimizing operating risks is the impact of valve placement on the potential outflow during a loss of containment event. In order to optimize the placement of valves in a pipeline, the effectiveness of each of many potential valve placement combinations must be measured by properties of the potential spill behaviour (i.e., average spill volume, peak spill volume, and HCA impacts). Factors affecting spill volume are topography, product properties, detection periods, valve closure timelines, and pump shut-down behaviour. This paper presents a solution to the challenge of optimizing valve placement in both interconnected and isolated systems through iterative generation of valve placement scenarios and hydraulic modeling. Various considerations that designers and operators should address are presented, along with results that are calibrated against real-world incidents.

Quantitative Risk Assessment for Projects Schedules

Despite vigilant efforts in project scheduling and planning by engineers and project managers, recent market research reported a marked decrease in project success rates. The market research tracked projects across a broad range of industries and concluded the primary failure causes to be a lack of sufficient detail in the project planning stage, poor or no risk analysis, scope creep and poor communication. This paper focuses on a strategy to minimize the first cause. Specifically, how to obtain sufficient schedule and resource estimates to better predict time allocation and expected costs with a focus on capital pipeline projects. To this end, a quantitative risk assessment (QRA) methodology is applied to project schedules allowing the uncertainty of key task durations and/or costs to be fully accounted for in the schedule. Projects managers will be able to quantify the uncertainty in their projects and support decision makers with a more accurate prediction of the likelihood of being on time and on budget. This paper introduces a systematic approach for both aleatory and epistemic uncertainty quantification. In addition, the expected benefits of adopting QRA for projects schedules are discussed through a hypothetical simple project schedule from the pipeline industry.

Pressure Cycling Process Mapping

Pressure cycling can result in integrity concerns for pipeline operators. Pressure monitoring is commonly used by pipeline operators to assess the effect of pressure cycling on existing assets. For new pipeline assets, however, the evaluation process for potential cycling is less mature. Enbridge Pipelines employs a pressure cycling evaluation process for new pipelines. A process mapping professional was engaged by Enbridge Pipelines to perform a mapping exercise on the existing pressure cycling process. A process flow chart was developed which identified key decision points during the development of a new pipeline. A gap analysis identified areas where process definition or enhancement was required. The newly created process flow was piloted on two development projects for new pipeline assets. After completing the process mapping exercise, a design standard was created. The design standard provides assessment procedures for pressure cycling on a new pipeline design. The timing for executing the process housed in the design standard is critical to ensuring that correct information is available early enough in the process to facilitate key design-related decisions. The process flow in the design standard illustrates the process used to determine and evaluate the anticipated fatigue life of a new development pipeline. In addition, this process flow illustrates the evaluation of mitigation strategies to improve anticipated fatigue life of a new development pipeline. Additionally, key learnings will be highlighted from the development and execution of the pressure cycling process on new development pipeline assets. The paper will address the future implication of the mapping exercise and the relevance of application of process mapping to other areas of Enbridge operations.