Pipeline transportation: oil pipelines of Russia

The oil pipelines of Russia are one of the key components of the fuel and energy sector of the country's economy. Today, the Russian Federation has an extensive network of oil pipelines, gas pipelines and oil product pipelines of various significance. Pipeline transport connects the territories of most of the Federation's subjects, and also serves for the export of hydrocarbons and products of their processing.

Classification of pipelines

Pipelines are divided according to their purpose:

• Local connect objects within the fishery, oil and gas storages, oil refineries.
• Regional pipelines have a length of several tens of kilometers. Associate oil fields with the main station, with points of oil loading (loading) on water or railway transport, the main pipeline.
• Trunk pipelines with a length of more than 50 km, with a pipe diameter from 200 mm to 1,400 mm and above. The distance that products can flow through such pipelines is measured in hundreds or thousands of kilometers. Pumping is carried out not by one compressor station, but by several located along the pipeline route. Depending on the oil product being pumped, the main pipeline is called an oil pipeline (crude oil pumping), a product pipeline (oil products), a fuel oil pipeline, a gasoline pipeline, a kerosene pipeline, etc.

Trunk pipelines work continuously, their short-term stopping is possible in the event of an accident, repair or scheduled replacement of parts.

Development of oil pipelines in Russia

The history of the development of pipelines in Russia is inherently linked to the development of the oil industry. In 1901, the state produced almost half of the world's oil production. With the increase in the volume of raw materials, the issue of its transportation has been increasingly raised. To reduce railway congestion and reduce the cost of transportation, the economic feasibility of pipeline construction was justified.

The first trunk oil pipelines of Russia with a total length of 1,147 km were built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and linked the fisheries around Baku with oil refineries. The initiative to build the first product pipeline belonged to D.I. Mendeleev. The plan was implemented in 1906. The product pipeline 831 km long, 200 mm pipe size and 13 compressor stations was the largest in the world at that time and supplied kerosene from Baku to Batumi for export.

In the pre-war years, the main flows of oil and oil products fell to the Caspian, the Caucasus and the Volga Basin. The oil pipelines Grozny-Tuapse (649 km, diameter 273 mm), Ishimbay-Ufa (169 km, 300 mm) and the product pipelines Mangyshlak - Samara and Ust-Balyk - Almetyevsk were put into operation.

A new round of development of the oil pipelines of Russia (then the USSR) was in the postwar years. The peak occurred during the period of rapid development of oil production and processing in the Volga-Ural basin and the development of Siberian deposits. Trunk pipelines of a considerable length up to 1200 mm in diameter were built. Thanks to some of them (for example, Surgut - Polotsk), Siberian oil began to be delivered to the central regions of Russia, Belarus and the Baltic states.

Advantages of pipeline transport

The most intensive development of oil pipelines and gas pipelines of Russia received in the second half of the XX century. To date, in terms of volume and specific gravity of transported hydrocarbons, pipeline transport is steadily replacing rail and water ways of transporting oil and oil products. The main advantages of oil and gas pipelines are:

• Significant transfer distance, uninterrupted operation, significant throughput, minimal losses.
• Wide viscosity range of pumped petroleum products.
• Stable operation in different climatic zones.
• The possibility of building pipelines in almost all areas.
• High level of mechanization during construction.
• Automation of control systems over technological processes.

The main disadvantage of pipeline transport is considered to be a fairly large capital investment at the construction stage.

The largest oil pipelines in Russia

1. Baku - Novorossiysk - an oil pipeline for the transfer of Caspian oil to the port of Novorossiysk.
2. Balakhany - The Black City is Russia's first oil pipeline, commissioned in 1878. The pipeline connects the Balakhani fishing on the Apsheron Peninsula and the oil refining capacities in the vicinity of Baku.
3. The Baltic Pipeline Network. The projected throughput is 74 million tons of oil per year. It connects the seaport of Primorsk with oil fields in Western Siberia and the Ural-Povolzhsky region.
4. Eastern Siberia - the Pacific Ocean - a pipeline that connects the Siberian fields with the filling port of Kozmino near Nakhodka. The pipeline operator is OAO AK Transneft. The length of 4,188 km gives an opportunity to export Russian oil to the markets of the Asia-Pacific region and the USA.
5. The Druzhba oil pipeline is the world's largest trunk pipeline system, built to supply oil and oil products to the socialist states of Eastern Europe. Now it is operated for export deliveries to Europe.
6. Grozny - Tuapse - the first Russian main oil pipeline of medium diameter, built in the early 20th century to transport Caucasian oil to the Black Sea coast.
7. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) links the deposits of western Kazakhstan with a terminal on the Black Sea coast near Novorossiysk.
8. The Murmansk pipeline with a throughput of 80 million tons connects the oil fields of Western Siberia and the seaport of Murmansk.
9. Surgut - Polotsk - an oil pipeline linking Western Siberia with Belarus and further the Baltic countries and Poland.
10. The unique in its own way the heated main oil pipeline Uzen-Atyrau-Samara.

Export through pipelines

At present, Russia's oil pipelines account for 84% of the oil exported from the country. The remaining 13% is for rail transport and 3% for water and river transport. OAO AK Transneft is the only oil pipeline operator in Russia. It accounts for 97% of all transported oil produced in the country. The length of the pipeline system of the company is more than 217 thousand km, which connects the main regions of oil production in Russia with the markets in Europe. Of the total transport system, 46.7 thousand km are oil pipelines and 19.3 thousand km are oil product pipelines.

The main oil pipelines of Russia, involved in exports:

• The Baltic oil pipeline, throughput capacity - 74 million tons per year;
• The pipeline system "Friendship". One of the branches of this highway goes to Poland, the second - to Slovakia. Total throughput - 90 million tons;
• The Black Sea oil pipelines - 43 million tons.

The most promising direction for the development of Russian oil exports is the East Siberian, in connection with the lively growth of oil consumption in China.