Improving Supply Chain Strategies towards Mitigating the Effect of Crude Oil Theft and Pipeline Vandalism in the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry: A Case Study of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)

Generically, SCM may be said to include all activities carried out to ensure proper functioning of the supply chain. The activities included in proper management of a supply chain broadly include logistics activities, planning and control of the flow of information and materials in a firm, management of relationships with other organizations and government intervention, However, crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism are established products supply chain disruptors in Nigeria which are rendering the task of running an efficient petroleum supply chain onerous. This paper aims to establish the importance of effective supply chain strategies for companies in the oil and gas industry with special focus on the Nigerian oil and gas sector and the strategies by which the state oil and gas corporation in this sector may mitigate disruptions to its supply chain. This study investigates the enhancement of supply chain strategies towards meeting the challenge of crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism, using the Nigerian National Corporation (NNPC) as a case study. Based on this study, data were collected from two sources: A summary of incident reports obtained from NNPC and an interview with personnel in the PPMC Department. Incident report refers to a report produced when accidents such as equipment failure, injury, loss of life, or fire occur at the work site. Content analysis is utilized to evaluate data obtained from interview responses, CBN financial stability reports, NDIC annual reports, circulars, banking supervision reports and implementation guidelines. The study found out that NNPC should endeavor to sustain its value chain and ward of pipeline vandals and crude oil thieves by engaging in community partnership, detailing security outfits to ensure its pipelines’ right of way and bridging. Concluded that the oil supply chain of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has been plagued by disruptions in the form of crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism which has had debilitating effects on its value.

Study on the Technology of Supplying Water Safely by Long-Distance Pipeline

The extensively built long-distance water transmission pipelines have become the main water sources for urban areas. To ensure the reliability and safety of the water supply, from the viewpoint of overall management, it would be necessary to establish a system of information management for the pipeline. The monitoring, calculating and analyzing functions of the system serve to give controlling instructions and safe operating rules to the automatic equipment and technician, making sure the resistance coefficient distribution along the pipeline is reasonable; the hydraulic state transition is smooth when operating conditions change or water supply accidents occur, avoiding the damage of water hammer. This paper covered the composition structures of the information management system of long-distance water transmission pipelines and the functions of the subsystems, and finally elaborated on the approaches and steps of building a mathematics model for the analysis of dynamic hydraulic status.

Criterions and Measures of Route Selection of Shallowly Embedded Long-Distance Oil and Gas Pipeline in Mountain Areas

According to the engineering investigation of long-distance oil and gas pipelines, the criterions and measures of route selection are drawn as follows： the flat landform is the first choice in route alignment. The foot of mountain is the first choice when the route passes by the valley. The route should pass by but the shady and deposited slope and not in sunny and erosive slope as possible as it can. The pipeline should be vertical to contour climbing and descending the mountain except steep slope. Tunnel can be used in crossing foothill. Perpendicularly traversing the river is better than beveling; the worst choice is to put the pipeline along the river. Bypass is the best choice in karsts area. The order of route selection should be pre-choosing, investigation, optimization and adjustment.

THE RISK ASSESSMENT OF THE LONG-DISTANCE OILPIPELINE ENGINEERING

The oilfield construction and long-distance oil pipeline engineering has been developed extensively in China. The risk assessment of oil industry will, however, be an important objective to cope with the development of oil industry , The risk assessment of oil industry has many subjects worthy to be studied.The major purpose of the paper is to research the risk cases of long-distance oil pipeline engineering in Ganshu and Shaanxi provinces.

Water hammer protection for diversion systems in front of pumps in long-distance water supply projects

For a water supply system with long-distance diversion pipelines, in addition to the water hammer problems that occur beyond pumps, the safety of the water diversion pipeline in front of pumps also deserves attention. In this study, a water hammer protection scheme combined with an overflow surge tank and a regulating valve was developed. A mathematical model of the overflow surge tank was developed, and an analytical formula for the height of the overflow surge tank was derived. Furthermore, a practical water supply project was used to evaluate the feasibility of the combined protection scheme and analyze the sensitivity of valve regulation rules. The results showed that the combined protection scheme effectively reduced the height of the surge tank, lessened the difficulties related to construction, and reduced the necessary financial investment for the project. The two-stage closing rule articulated as fast first and then slow could minimize the overflow volume of the surge tank when the power failure occurred, while the two-stage opening rule articulated as slow first and then fast could be more conducive to the safety of the water supply system when the pump started up.

Supply-based optimal scheduling of oil product pipelines

Oil product pipelines have features such as transporting multiple materials, ever-changing operating conditions, and synchronism between the oil input plan and the oil offloading plan. In this paper, an optimal model was established for a single-source multi-distribution oil pro- duct pipeline, and scheduling plans were made based on supply. In the model, time node constraints, oil offloading plan constraints, and migration of batch constraints were taken into consideration. The minimum deviation between the demanded oil volumes and the actual offloading volumes was chosen as the objective function, and a linear programming model was established on the basis of known time nodes＇ sequence. The ant colony optimization algo- rithm and simplex method were used to solve the model. The model was applied to a real pipeline and it performed well.

An MILP approach for detailed scheduling of oil depots along a multi-product pipeline

Oil depots along products pipelines are important components of the pipeline transportation system and down-stream markets.The operating costs of oil depots account for a large proportion of the total system’s operating costs.Meanwhile,oil depots and pipelines form an entire system,and each operation in a single oil depot may have influence on others.It is a tough job to make a scheduling plan when considering the factors of delivering contaminated oil and batches migration.So far,studies simultaneously considering operating constraints and contaminated oil issues are rare.Aiming at making a scheduling plan with the lowest operating costs,the paper establishes a mixed-integer linear programming model,considering a sequence of operations,such as delivery, export, blending,fractionating and exchanging operations,and batch property differences of the same oil as well as influence of batch migration on contaminated volume.Moreover,the paper verifies the linear relationship between oil concentration and blending capability by mathematical deduction.Finally,the model is successfully applied to one of the product pipelines in China and proved to be practical.

Hydraulic model optimization of a multi-product pipeline

An optimization model is established for a multi-product pipeline which has a known delivery demand and operation plan for each off-take station.The aim of this optimization model is to minimize the total pumping operation cost,considering not only factors including the energy equilibrium constraint,the maximum and minimum suction and discharge pressures constraints of pump stations,and pressure constraint at special elevation points,but also the regional differences in electricity prices along the pipeline.The dynamic programming method is applied to solve the model and to find the optimal pump configuration.

Productivity Monitoring of Land Pipelines Welding via Control Chart Using the Monte Carlo Simulation

This article evaluates the efficacy of a tool developed in the Monte Carlo simulation and referred to as control chart. This tool is used in order to detect changes in productivity resulting from the occurrence of a given event during the welding of land pipelines with self shielded flux cored wire (FCAW). The elaboration of this control chart is based on the data from the Cumulative Probability Density Function (CDF) curve, and generated in the Monte Carlo simulation using version 6 of the Palisade Corporation’s @Risk software for Excel, in a sample with productivity data from 29 welded joints, gathered through direct observation which considers the productive and unproductive times. In order to evaluate the control chart efficacy, the performance of welding productivity with a FCAW process with low alloy steels has been assessed during 29 days, summing up to 842 welded joints registered on “Relatórios Diários de Obras” (Construction Works Daily Reports). The results show that the model developed for the control chart elaboration is effective in monitoring the productivity of the observed welding procedure.

2013 Production of China's Shale Gas Reaches 200 Million Cubic Meters and the First Transportation Pipeline Constructed

Results of the global shale gas resources show that minable resources of global shale gas are 187 trillion cubic meters （tern）, of which China accounts for 36 tcm （about 20% of the total amount）, which is mainly distributed in the Sichuan Basin, Yangtze Terrace, and Ordos Basin. From 2009 to 2012, China completed an accumulative number of 129 drilling wells related to shale gas, including 46 investigated vertical wells, 55 exploration wells and 28 evaluation wells, with 2012 production ranging from 25 million cubic meters （mcm） to 30 mcm.

APPLICATION OF CONVECTION-DIFFUSION EQUATION TO THEANALYSES OF CONTAMINATION BETWEEN BATCHESIN MULTI-PRODUCTS PIPELINE TRANSPORT

Contamination between batches in multi-products pipeline transport is studied. The influences of convection and diffusion on the contamination are studied in detail. Diffusion equations, which are mainly controlled by convection, are developed under turbulent pipe flow. The diffusion equation is separated into a pure convection equation and a pure diffusion equation which are solved by characteristics method and finite difference method respectively to obtain numerical solutions. The results of numerical computation explain the forming and developing of contamination very well.

Mechanism of protective film formation during CO_2 corrosion of X65 pipeline steel

Electrochemical techniques, X-ray diffraction （XRD）, and scanning electron microscopy （SEM） were applied to study the corrosion behaviors of X65 steel in static solution with carbon dioxide （CO2） at 65℃. The results show that iron carbonate （FeCO3） deposits on the steel surface as a corrosion product scale. This iron carbonate scale acts as a barrier to CO2 corrosion, and can reduce the general corrosion rate. The protection ability of the scale is closely related to the scale morphological characteristics.

Experimental investigation of hydrate formation in water-dominated pipeline and its influential factors

Blockage in water-dominated flow pipelines due to hydrate reformation has been suggested as a potential safety issue during the hydrate production.In this work,flow velocity-dependent hydrate formation features are investigated in a fluid circulation system with a total length of 39 m.A 9-m section pipe is transparent consisted of two complete rectangular loops.By means of pressurization with gas-saturated water,the system can gradually reach the equilibrium conditions.The result shows that the hydrates are delayed to appear as floccules or thin films covering the methane bubbles.When the circulation velocity is below 750 rpm,hydrate is finally deposited as a“hydrate bed”at upmost of inner wall,narrowing the flow channel of the pipeline.Nevertheless,no plugging is observed during all the experimental runs.The five stages of hydrate deposition are proposed based on the experimental results.It is also revealed that a higher driving pressure is needed at a lower flow rate.The driving force of hydrate formation from gas and water obtained by melting hydrate is higher than that from fresh water with no previous hydrate history.The authors hope that this work will be beneficial for the flow assurance of the following oceanic field hydrate recovery trials.

The CMEKF Method for Sub-Sea Pipeline Monitoring and Leak Detection

A practical approach is discussed for sub-sea pipeline monitoring and leak detection based on the real time transient model . The characteristic method of transient simulation is coupled with the Extended Kalman Filter to estimate the system state where the only observed data are inlet and outlet flow rate and pressure. Because EKF has a time variant track under the non-stationary stochastic process with additive Gaussian noise, the high sensitivity of RTTM to non-stationary operating condition is reduced. A leak location recursion estimation formula is presented based on the real time observed data. The results of 27 groups of test data indicate that the procedure presented is sensitive to a wide range of detectable leak sizes and has a low average relative error of leak location .

湿CO_(2)环境中316不锈钢腐蚀行为研究

针对CO_(2)管输过程中碳钢因发生腐蚀而导致失效的问题,开展了316不锈钢的腐蚀行为研究。使用失重法研究含水率、CO_(2)分压以及Cl-浓度对316不锈钢腐蚀行为的影响,并绘制了腐蚀特征图谱;采用扫描电镜分析了腐蚀产物的微光形貌,X-射线衍射仪分析了腐蚀产物成分。结果表明:316不锈钢在管输CO_(2)工况条件下表现出较好的耐腐蚀性,处于轻度腐蚀状态,腐蚀速率极低;316不锈钢腐蚀速率随含水率的增大而增大,随CO_(2)分压的增大而减小,随Cl-浓度的增加而增大;316不锈钢含有Cr可以在不锈钢表面形成致密的钝化膜,这使得Cr成为不锈钢防腐的关键;由于316不锈钢腐蚀速率远小于碳钢,在腐蚀“重灾区”,可以考虑将集输管道更换成316不锈钢。该研究成果为CCUS中CO_(2)管输钢材的选型提供重要的理论依据。

文化人类学视野下自贡井盐生产工具与技艺——竹笕输卤系统

竹笕输卤系统是自贡盐场传统井盐生产体系中的重要组成部分。文章立足于文化人类学的视野,综合利用晚清民国时期的盐业志书、盐场调查报告、盐务报刊、地方志、历史图片,结合田野调查,探析自贡盐场竹笕输卤产生的背景、竹笕制作安设及其主要装置和笕业,揭示自贡盐场竹笕及其输卤系统的基本面貌,为竹笕输卤技艺的保护、保存和再利用提供基础依据。

基于CAE-TSNE的成品油管道运行工况识别

成品油管道运行工况变化频繁,难以精准判断管道运行状态,依靠现场人员进行识别监控易造成误判。本文为实现管道运行工况的准确识别,考虑管道的物理空间特性,分析整理各站运行参数(压力、流量、密度);考虑管道运行的时间序列特性,基于SCADA管道数据构造运行数据矩阵,以克服单一时刻的瞬态扰动。针对管道运行数据高维度、非线性的特点,利用卷积自编码器(CAE)强大的特征压缩及重构能力对管道数据做降噪处理;利用T分布邻域嵌入算法(T-SNE)对管道数据做降维聚类处理,最终建立了基于CAE-TSNE的管道运行工况识别模型。以某两条成品油管道为例,对比主流的非线性分类模型(ANN、DT、RF),结果表明基于CAE-TSNE的工况识别模型精度最高,对降噪后的运行数据识别准确率可达到99%以上,可用于指导现场管道的运行管理。

苏里格气田采气集气工艺及管网模拟研究现状

苏里格气田作为我国内陆最大的整装气田,随着天然气不断开采,地层压力逐渐降低,采气工艺技术的革新与集气管网布局的优化成为延续气田生产寿命的核心问题。该气田通过井下节流工艺有效利用地温热能解决了水合物堵塞问题;新型锁芯式井下节流器一次打捞成功率在90%以上;布井方案采用单井串接工艺,缩短了采气管线长度;减少运行管理费用投入,使建设投资额降低约48.8%。梳理了近年来管网模型研究的发展动态,指出不同方法的优缺点,并以苏里格气田采气量增加30%的背景下,展示了骨架管网水力计算模型的建立过程和模拟软件算法流程,利用TGNET软件模拟管网压降幅度,从而有效抑制水合物生成并避免经济损失。针对集输管网适用性评价进行讨论,指出了生产工况变化对管网运行效率的影响,以及建立水力计算模型对于预测和避免潜在风险的必要性。

基于质量分析方法的液压管路大批量生产质量稳定性优化与验证

针对武器装备液压管路进入大批量生产模式后质量稳定性难以保证的问题,从质量分析和成形精度优化控制两方面展开研究:一是基于质量分析方法对液压管路制造关键工艺及参数进行识别,对进入大批量生产后的关键工艺质量稳定性进行验证,根据验证结果确定优化方向和策略,实现液压管路的质量控制与改进;二是提出液压管路成形精度优化工艺方法,通过单一变量试验和数据处理、分析,建立一个满足生产和研究需要的补偿数据库,从而提升液压管路大规模生产的产品质量稳定性和生产效率。