• Question: how long would it take to transport something through your pipe line

    Asked by CheeseyFireBear to Neil on 17 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Neil Taylor

      Neil Taylor answered on 17 Mar 2015:

      Hi!

      Great question! I’m going to give you the typical engineering answer – it depends! Factors that affect the time will include:

      – Length of the pipeline (longer pipeline = longer to transport)
      – How much oil is coming out the reservoir per day (more = faster flow)
      – Diameter of the pipeline (larger diameter = slower flow)

      For oil, a typical production of say 45,000 bbls/day (barrels per day) with a typical pipe that has an inner diameter of say 8″ (inches), works out to be around 2.5 m/s (metres per second). This is about 5.6 mph, or a fast walk.

      It all depends on the factors in the list above, but rough guides are:

      1 m/s to 5 m/s for Oil
      5 m/s to 15 m/s for Gas

      Hope this helps!

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