Pipelines are composed of several pieces of equipment that operate together to move products from location to location. The main elements of a Pipeline system are:

A Pipeline schematic.

Initial injection station

Known also as supply or inlet station, is the beginning of the system, where the product is injected into the line. Storage facilities, pumps or compressors are usually located at these locations.

Compressor/pump stations

Pumps for liquid Pipelines and Compressors for Gas Pipelines, are located along the line to move the product through the Pipeline. The location of these stations is defined by the topography of the terrain, the type of product being transported, or operational conditions of the network.

Partial delivery station

Known also as intermediate stations, these facilities allow the Pipeline operator to deliver part of the product being transported

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Block valve station

These are the first line of protection for Pipelines. With these valves the operator can isolate any segment of the line for maintenance work or isolate a rupture or leak. Block valve stations are usually located every 20 to 30 miles (48 km), depending on the type of Pipeline. Even though it is not a design rule, it is a very usual practice in liquid Pipelines. The location of these stations depends exclusively on the nature of the product being transported, the trajectory of the Pipeline and/or the operational conditions of the line.

Regulator station

This is a special type of valve station, where the operator can release some of the pressure from the line. Regulators are usually located at the downhill side of a peak.

Final delivery station

Known also as outlet stations or terminals, this is where the product will be distributed to the consumer. It could be a tank terminal for liquid Pipelines or a connection to a distribution network for Gas Pipelines.

Leak detection systems

Since oil and Gas Pipelines are an important asset of the economic development of almost any country, it has been required either by government regulations or internal policies to ensure the safety of the assets, and the population and environment where these pipelines run.

Pipeline companies face government regulation, environmental constraints and social situations. Pipeline companies should comply with government regulations which may define minimum staff to run the operation, operator training requirements, up to specifics including Pipeline facilities, technology and applications required to ensure operational safety. As an example, in the State of Washington, it is mandatory for Pipeline operators to be able to detect and locate leaks of 8 percent of maximum flow within 15 minutes or less.

The social situation also affects the operation of pipelines. In third world countries, product theft is a problem for pipeline companies. It is common to find unauthorized extractions in the middle of the Pipeline. In this case, the detection levels should be under 2 percent of maximum flow, with a high expectation for location accuracy.

Different types of technologies and strategies have been implemented, from physically walking the lines to satellite surveillance. The most common technology to protect these lines from occasional leaks is known as Computational Pipeline Monitoring Systems or CPM. CPM takes information from the field related to pressures, flows, and temperatures to estimate the hydraulic behavior of the product being transported. Once the estimation is done, the results are compared to other field references to detect the presence of an anomaly or unexpected situation, which may be related to a leak.

The American Petroleum Institute has published several articles related to the performance of CPM in liquids pipelines, the API Publications are:

API 1130 ¨C Computational pipeline monitoring for liquids pipelines

API 1155 ¨C Evaluation methodology for software based leak detection systems