Pipeline costs associated with

Produced water has to be separated from oil for two main reasons, firstly because the customer is buying oil not water, and secondly to minimise costs associated with evacuation (e.g., volume pumped, corrosion protection for pipelines). A water content of less than 0.5% is a typical specification for sales crude. 

Remote and relatively small gas fields cannot justify the high investment cost associated with liquefied natural gas (LNG) production or a gas pipeline system. Conversion of the natural gas from such gas fields to liquids by a gas-to-liquids facility allows these gas fields to be exploited. 

Any real application of pipeline transport of biomass from a field location (as opposed to mill residue) will normally require an initial truck haul to get the biomass to the pipeline inlet. This means that the fixed costs associated with both truck and pipeline transport are incurred. Thus, e.g., truck hauling of 2 million dry t/yr of biomass to a pipeline inlet at an average haul distance of 35 km (1), as might occur in a whole-forest harvest operation, with further transport of biomass by one- or two-way pipeline would have cost curves as shown in Fig. 3. The alternative of transport by truck alone is shown by the dashed line in Fig. 3. 

Since, as shown in Fig. 5, changing the moisture level of wood chips from 50% to 67% increases the requirement for field biomass in direct combustion by 78% for a given output of heat and power, it is evident that water-based pipelining of wood chips cannot be economical for direct combustion, because the increase in field harvest cost associated with the higher biomass requirement is larger than any possible transportation cost saving. For straw, so much water is taken up that the LHV is effectively zero pipeline transport of straw to a direct combustion application would destroy the heating value of the fuel. 

The economic analysis of an emulsion pipeline transportation system is highly site specific and depends on several factors that cannot be specified for a general case. However, example cases are presented to illustrate typical costs associated with use of the technology. 

Surfactant Cost. A major cost associated with using oil-in-water emulsions is the cost of the surfactants used to stabilize the oil droplets within the emulsion. This cost will depend upon the surfactant formulation chosen for the specific application, the transportation distance involved, and in some cases the type of crude oil being emulsified. On the basis of the formulation that we typically use and current market prices, the estimated surfactant cost to transport heavy crude oil as an emulsion for a distance of 200 to 400 miles (322 to 644 km) is approximately 0.50 to 1.00 per barrel of crude oil shipped. For greater pipeline lengths, up to 1500 to 2000 miles, the surfactant cost may increase by 50-100% relative to the shorter dis-... 

The oil producer, on the other hand, must dispose of any solids removed from an emulsion-treatment system by land farming (placement of waste solids in an approved landfill area), shipment to an approved waste facility, re-injection through a disposal well or water-flood system, or shipment to pipeline. These options are governed by the amount of oil associated with the solids, which is directly related to emulsion-breaking capabilities and the amount of solids present. In many cases it may be desirable for an oil producer to blend a portion of oil-wet solids into shipments for pipeline if the specification of less than 0.5% BS W is not exceeded. This method of solids disposal may be the most cost-effective available to the producer. 

The diameter of the pipeline to be used is also a major concern for the economic and efficient transportation of the natural gas. As the diameter of the pipeline increases the inlet pressure of the gas can be increased and in turn the throughput capacity of the pipeline is increased. However, with the larger pipelines the associated pressure drop is also higher and hence more compressor stations have to be installed which might increase the cost of the... 

The SFA results are significantly higher than those presented by Amos, and highlight the huge degree of uncertainty associated with various transport options. For example, whereas Amos estimates hydrogen could be delivered for about 0.10 /kg by pipeline, the SFA study estimates costs of 2.94 /kg. They do follow a similar pattern, with... 

Most of the literature on pipeline transportation considers customer demands for the products at the depots to be served at the end of the planning horizon. An exception is proposed in Cafaro and Cerda (2008) where customer demands at the depots are associated with due-dates such that backorder costs are incorporated in the objective function. Moreover, the work proposes a rolling horizon model for updating and re-scheduling previously determined schedules according to updated demand characteristics. 

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