Pipeline Routing

By Mark Nussbaum, SR/WA

A new client unfamiliar with the pipeline business recently asked me what is typically required in developing a pipeline project. I responded in the only way an experienced right of way professional can-that there is no typical pipeline project, since each project takes on its own unique challenges based on the location, environmental sensitivity, size of pipe, product to be transported and proposed schedule. 

The client then asked what I believed was the most important aspect of planning a successful pipeline project when project scheduling and budgeting are the overriding concerns. Quickly, I ran through a summary of all the stages of planning a pipeline project, beginning with safety, and moving on to routing, engineering, right of way acquisition, survey, mapping, GIS, environmental, and finally, construction. 

I explained that if I had to pick one aspect of planning that impacts a pipeline project from beginning to end, it is route selection - the time, analysis and reasoning put into the original routing of the pipeline by the stakeholders who would have to work within the parameters imposed by the chosen route.In the planning stage, there is one key component that all pipeline projects have in common–how the initial routing of the pipeline will affect the eventual interface of all activities required for the project. 

HOW A ROUTE IS SELECTED

At Mustang Engineering, where I serve as Director of Pipeline Services, we first hold a project kick-off meeting where all the specifications of a project are discussed. Next we assemble a routing team to start the detailed process of developing a successful route. The routing team is usually comprised of an engineering project manager, a design engineer, and a representative of each field service group, including right of way, environmental, GIS, survey and construction. By involving every group that will ultimately be impacted by the pipeline route selection, everyone gets the opportunity to identify issues and problems with a proposed route and suggest routing changes that may mitigate these issues. This helps alleviate the need for re-routing of the pipeline further along in the project schedule, when changes can become more costly and time-consuming.

In the initial stages of route selection, most of the basic routing is done in the office by the GIS specialist using a web-based viewer that is customized for the specific project. This step requires the GIS specialist to download any publicly available information that could potentially impact the project disciplines. Examples of information that are searched out and made into data layers include:

• Recent aerial photography 
• All federal, state and local parks, wildlife management areas, forests, public lands
• Tax maps and associated landowner information
• Foreign pipelines and other utilities that cross the proposed route
• Road, railroad and water crossings
• Jurisdictional boundaries of states, counties, cities
• Native American ownership or interests
• Federal and state threatened and endangered species
• Wetlands and other environmentally sensitive properties

This listing is a sample of the information that may be developed into data layers for eventual incorporation into the GIS viewer to use in preparing the desktop routing study. Once the data layers have been developed and added to the viewer, the routing team meets and begins the process of laying out the pipeline route.

Reference:
http://www.mustangeng.com/AboutMustang/Publications/Publications/Pipeline%20Route%20Selection%20rev%2012-7-11.pdf