How it Works Now

Now let's follow the travels of a tank of crude oil brought out of our typical well, Pioneer Smith Number One. From the Christmas tree at the wellhead it goes - by gravity if possible, otherwise by pump -to one of a number of tanks on the oil field, called lease tanks. From there it flows through a small pipeline to the nearest large trunk pipeline. A gauger on each lease tank measures the amount of oil flowing into the pipeline and records the number of gallons taken out. The large trunk pipelines carry the oil direct to a refinery or to a shipping point for transfering it to a tank truck, a tanker, tank car, or barge. Then it will be shipped to a more distant refinery.

The first successful oil pipeline, four miles long, was laid by Sam­uel van Syckle near Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, in 1865, but the first important one wasn't finished until 1879. It ran from western Pennsyl­vania over the Allegheny Mountains to Williamport in the central part of the state. This line was 110 miles long and was the first of a maze of pipelines which soon spread all over the country. Over mountain ranges and through deserts and swamps run these huge steel pipes, thirty inches or more in diameter.

The pipelines are run almost like railroad systems, with trunk and branch lines, and tank farms where oil is stored until it is needed. Every sixty miles or so there is a powerful pumping station full of control panels, valves, and red and green signal lights. These con-

Pipelines crossing a desert.
108 Chapter Five

trols keep the oil moving through the pipe at two or three miles an hour.

The pipelines are constantly inspected for leaks or stoppages. At one time this was done by pipe walkers on foot. Now in­spectors use low-flying planes, from which they can spot a leak by the dark patches made by the oozing oil.

Pipelines are cleaned by a de­vice called a pig. This mechanism, has metal blades that scrape the inside of the pipe and keeps it clear. The pressure of the oil it­self forces the pig to move through the pipe. The pig can only go from one pumping sta­tion to the next, where it is taken out and cleaned.

A pig, used to clean a pipeline.

To clear the line of dirt and sludge, or to locate some larger obstruction, a "go-devil" is sent

scratching down the inside of the pipe. This is a flexible machine of rollers and steel springs, pushed along by the flow of the oil. It shoves dirt, paraffin, and any loose objects ahead of it as it clatters through the pipe.

The go-devil is accompanied on the outside by a man on foot, who can locate it by the slight scrapping noise it makes; if the noise

Typical distribution of petroleum products in a product pipeline.

GASOLINE

KEROSENE BENZENE

 

Tranportation and Storage

ceases he knows the go-devil has found something too big for it to handle. Then he calls in men to dig up the pipe and remove the obstruction.

8 Oil becomes less fluid as it grows colder, and so in cold climates
the pipelines are equipped with heaters which warm the oil enough to
make it flow easily. Often many different products are moved
through the same pipes at the same time. Once they were kept sepa­
rate by pumping a plug of water between two products. Now pres­
sure and rate of flow are so well controlled that the products are
kept separate without using these plugs.

9 Today everybody needs oil. Pipelines reach into the most remote
places of the world. In the jungles of Venezuela and Colombia, across
the burning deserts of Iran and Iraq, in tropical Burma and Indonesia,
and in the frozen wastes of nothern Canada, pipelines have been
laid, and oil is flowing through them.

1Q In the United States, as all over the world, gas from natural-gas

wells also flows through pipelines to almost every part of the coun­try. It supplies mills, factories and homes.