[sit-rep]

Something doesn’t sound right... 14,000 barrels?? If I’m not mistakin, their are instruments installed that will shut down the system if point A is showing say 100gpm flow and point B shows a 99 gpm flow then the system should shut down immediately...

I sense something a foul!!

[sit-rep]

There**

[jimjohn]

Exactly what I was thinking. A drop in pressure should automatically cause valves upstream to close, thus cutting off a major spill.

[Pollard]

will shut down the system if point A is showing say 100gpm flow and point B shows a 99 gpm flow

How many barrels of oil will the pipeline hold between point A and point B? Could have pumped 4,000 barrels, pump shuts off, 10,000 more barrels drain via gravity.

I'm always amazed at how much water comes out of a 1/2" cpvc plumbing pipe when I have to open the system for a modification/repair. How many feet in diameter is an oil pipeline? A barrel is less than 2 feet. Increasing diameter increases area exponentially.

Pi x R2(radius squared) gives you area.

2 foot diameter - 1 x 1 x 3.14 = 3.14 cu ft

4 foot diameter - 2 x 2 x 3.14 = 12.56 cu ft

8 foot diameter - 4 x 4 x 3.14 = 50.26 cu ft

16 foot diameter - 16 x 16 x 3.14 = 803.84 cu ft

830.84 x 100 ft length = 80384 cu ft

80384 cu ft = 601314.07792 gallons

601314.08 gal / 55 = 1096.619636364 barrels per 100 foot of 16' dia pipe.

5280 feet in a mile. Just a few miles of 8 or 10 ft dia pipeline could easily gravity drain 14,000 barrels.

[Deaf Smith]

>>Something doesn’t sound right…

In the oil fields, the barrel unit of measure is 42 US gallons.

A typical US oil interstate pipeline is 36 inches; some lesser and some greater.

Using a 36” ID pipe example, the pipeline capacity is 1.25 barrels per foot.

One mile of pipeline ( 5280 ft) has the capacity of 6,600 barrels.

A spillage of a estimation of 14,000 barrels is 2.1212 miles of pipeline capacity.

Turning a pipeline pump off does not automatically take length of pipeline to zero psi due to fluid dynamics factors.

Using your garden/lawn water hose, if when completed of your task you lay the hose down and turn the water off, you will have degrading, continuing flow until the capacity of the hose is removed to the lowest end by gravity.

Same example, if you have a close spray nozzle on the hose, pressure stays present until you relieve such by opening the spray nozzle. Turing the faucet off did not take the contained psi to zero until you relieved the pressure at the nozzle.

Now increase the scale of your 0.50 to 0.75 inch ID water hose to 36 inches and miles of length.