Optimal Sectioning of Hydrocarbon Transport Pipeline by Volume Minimization, and Environmental and Social Vulnerability Assessment

PresentationSectioning is one of the key mitigation strategies in pipeline transport of liquid hydrocarbons. The valves located along pipelines reduce the maximum volume that may be spilled, decreasing economic, social and environmental losses. Defining the location and number of valves in a specific pipeline section is a challenge due to the countless combinations of these two design components (i.e., where and how many valves). In this work, we tackle the valve location problem (VLP) for sectioning. To solve the problem, we use an optimization approach which assesses the number and location of valves to minimize environmental and social consequences. This problem is modeled as a shortest path problem and it considers the maximum volume that could be spilled as well as environmental and social issues. To estimate and quantify the damages (environmental and social) a new framework is proposed. We present a case study for sectioning in a pipeline of Colombia; the problem is solved using a Bellman-Ford algorithm with CPU times up to 32 s. The results show reductions around 75% of the maximum possible spilled volume. The resulting valve configurations cover areas with high vulnerability, guarantying individual risks lower than the acceptable risk on all populated areas