... I also know that I was in charge of purchasing - building the largest pipeline in the US, a 30" heavy crude line, from California to Texas, over the Rockies.
We joked when building it that if it shut down, we would have the longest liqorish stick in the world, because the oil had to be heated to 180 degrees to flow and if it shut down and cooled, it would solidify and never be usable again.
Will it shut down in January over the Rocky Mountains? I don't know. I do know that I had no y2k specification for it. I also know that the valve manufacturer we used went out of business in the late 80's, the electrically operated valves took 8 months from order to delivery and now replacements must probably be imported.
In Saudi we built a lot of water desalinzation plants, highly time dependent, with 10's of thousands of embedded chips. My personal opinion, Saudi and its oil will probably dry up in a matter of hours.
Chevron has pretty much admitted they won't make it. 3 out of 5 plants in Venezuela probably won't make it. Overall estimates are rumored that we will lose 70% of our oil plants around the world. But no one really knows. It's impossible to know.
I know that the corporate lawyers I worked with were really good at covering the company's *sses, but didn't know a thing about whether the company could do the job or even cared if it could, as long as their *sses were covered.
I know that there is not a single port in the world which has been certified compliant yet, that many of the tankers are not compliant, US and foreign customs are not compliant.
I know that as purchasing agent and purchasing manager, we had no y2k specifications at all as late as 1997, so who knows if they will work or not. I do know that one valve failing to close or open at the proper time can crew up the whole operation, and thee are thousands and thousands of valves in each plant, almost all electronically controlled and dependent on each other.
I think that the govt will take what little oil that is produced ...
[BACK TO THE PIPELINE]
... we built this pipeline generally in the years 1986 and 1987.
The electrical and electronic valving, pumping, and heater control systems were not required to comply with y2k, therefore, that question was not even asked of the designers and vendors. What we got was a system which worked then and worked just fine. Were the systems y2k compliant. I have no idea, and since I build things, not operate them, there is no reason for me to know 12 years after I finish a job. Does your home builder know if your neat programmable dishwasher will work for y2k in the house he built 5 years ago? I think not.
How was the heat kept in the pipeline?
We had 27 pump stations and 24 heater stations (some co-located) spread out over the length of the line from Santa Maria on the Pacific coast in California, to Texas. The line was originally intended to be 1700 miles long, but got somewhat truncated in Texas due to politics, EPA and running through the Edwards Aquifer. The line was insulated a few miles out from each station and unheated in the center sections between the stations. The line was for the most part, but not totally, buried. The system allows the oil in the line to be maintained at a nominal 180 degrees to maintain flow and prevent deposits of paraffin from the heavy crude oil.
Pipelines that need to retain heat are insulated, buried and/or are heated by steam or electricity. Steam is not practical for long lines. Electrical tracing or electricity running through the pipe wall will supply heat. No additional electrical heating was built into the line, only insulation and giant heaters in the stations.
What was used. How will Y2K affect that pipeline? What was the backup power source ? ( I will bet you $50 dollars (payable to Jim Robinson) that there was a backup power source.)
Interesting bet. I don't bet. However, if I did, you would loose. You can send the $50 to Jim anyway though, if you want. Up to you. I'm sure he would appreciate the donation. Backup power diesel generators would have cost many millions more. It takes a lot of power to push a 30 inch diameter column of oil 50 to 100 miles long up a mountain, or even along a plain. The general overall cost of the pipeline was $1 billion already.
And there is a particularly disturbing problem: Electrical power is supplied by local power companies all along the line through 5 separate states and I have no idea how many local utilities. All these power companies must stay up for the pipeline to function. They may have installed back up power in the intervening years.
However, since the line was originally built for Goodyear and when Goodyear was going bankrupt only a few years after the line was built they were forced to sell the line, and it has been sold at least once more that I know of, that, coupled with the fact that the oil would retain heat for a far longer period of time (no hurricane paths en-route and depending on time of year and local temperatures) than most normal electrical outages would last, there was no great need of backup power for the line. It would have been cost prohibitive. In addition, the ongoing maintenance costs of the giant generators would have been tremendous.
I hope that answers your questions.
PS - I hope to hell it does work. We built a good line. We just didn't consider y2k. Remember too that the Alaskan pipeline, while far more famous, is only 752 miles long, has similar potential problems, but much colder weather.
If either of these lines go down, the impact on our oil supply will be dramatic. After they cool and solidify (72 hrs generally, but that varies), they cannot be restarted, ever again. They must be rebuilt.
And even when we built it we couldn't get enough US made steel pipe to do the line in a timely manner so we bought pipe from Belgium, Korea and Brazil in addition to the US. In fact we took the total US steel import quotas from Brazil for 2 years.
From: XBob (emailname) *
freerepublic.com
INTERESTING DISCUSSION AND GOOD INFO REGARDING CHEMICAL PLANTS/REFINERIES
Cheryl |
