Managing of a Strategic Crude Oil Pipeline for Maximum Transportation Capacity

The aged crude oil pipeline; 16″ × 166 km since November 1984, extends from Meleiha field at western desert to El-Hamra terminal at coast of the Mediterranean sea. Its original capacity was 100,000 BOPD using two pumping stations; one at Meleiha and the other is a boosting station, 83 km far from Meleiha. Planned pumped flow rate increased to 177,000 BOPD at the time that Maximum Allowable Working Pressure (MAWP) reduced from 1440 psi to 950 psi. This paper shows managing procedures led to pumping higher flow rate without exceeding MAWP, where two solutions to accommodate such increase in production were applied; firstly by looping the existing pipeline with a (16″ × 56 km), secondly by using a Drag Reducing Agent (DRA), so that could reduce hydraulic friction losses and Total Dynamic Pressure (TDP) in the system and could pumped more with reduced initial pumping pressure at Meleiha. So, the intermediate station was temporarily abandoned. Mathematical models are designed to simulate pumping operation through the whole system, where TDP is predicted for the three pipeline cases: 1- normal case without both looping & DRA. 2- case without DRA & with looping. 3- case with both looping & DRA. Laws of hydraulics are applied with the deduced formula represents performance of DRA in which percentage of drop in pressure losses is modeled as a function of DRA dose in ppm. Close agreement is remarked between values of the deduced theoretical values and actual values obtained for TDP, confirming validity of such mathematical models.