Russia's oil pipelines 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 importance. Pipeline transport connects the territories of most constituent entities of the Federation, and also serves to export hydrocarbons and their processed products.
Pipeline classification
Pipelines are divided according to their purpose:
- Local connect objects within the field, oil and gas storage facilities, oil refineries.
- Regional pipelines are several tens of kilometers long. Oil fields are connected with the main station, with oil loading points (loading) on water or rail transport, and with a trunk pipeline.
- Trunk - pipelines with a length of over 50 km, pipe diameters from 200 mm to 1400 mm and above. The distance at which products can be delivered via such pipelines is measured in hundreds or thousands of kilometers. Transfer is carried out not by one compressor station, but by several located along the pipeline route. Depending on the pumped oil product, the main pipeline is called an oil pipeline (pumping crude oil), a product pipeline (oil products), a fuel oil pipeline, a gas pipeline, a kerosene pipeline, etc.
The main pipelines operate continuously, their short-term stop is possible in the event of an accident, repair or planned replacement of parts.
Development of oil pipelines in Russia
The history of the development of pipelines in Russia is inextricably linked with the development of the oil industry. In 1901, almost half of the total world oil production was produced in the state. With an increase in the volume of raw materials, the question of its transportation more often arose. To reduce the congestion of railways and reduce the cost of transportation, the economic feasibility of building pipelines was justified.
The first Russian oil trunk pipelines with a total length of 1,147 km were built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and connected the fields in the vicinity of 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 subsequent export.
In the prewar years, the main flows of oil and oil products accounted for the Caspian, Caucasus and Volga basin. The Grozny-Tuapse oil pipelines (649 km, diameter 273 mm), Ishimbay-Ufa (169 km, 300 mm) and the Mangyshlak-Samara and Ust-Balyk-Almetyevsk oil pipelines were commissioned.
The Russian oil pipelines (then the USSR) received a new round of development in the postwar years. The peak occurred during the period of rapid development of oil production and refining in the Volga-Ural basin and the development of deposits in Siberia. The main pipelines of considerable length with a diameter of up to 1200 mm 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 in Russia received in the second half of the XX century. Today, in terms of volume and specific gravity of hydrocarbons transported, pipeline transport is steadily crowding out railway and water methods of transporting oil and oil products. The main advantages of oil and gas pipelines are:
- Significant pumping range, uninterrupted operation, substantial throughput, minimal losses.
- A wide range of viscosity of pumped petroleum products.
- Stable work in different climatic zones.
- Possibility of building pipelines in almost any field.
- High level of mechanization during construction.
- Automation of process control systems.
The main disadvantage of pipeline transport is considered quite a large investment at the construction stage.
The largest oil pipelines in Russia
- Baku - Novorossiysk - an oil pipeline for pumping Caspian oil to the port of Novorossiysk.
- Balakhany - The Black City is the first Russian oil pipeline commissioned back in 1878. The pipeline route connects the Balakhani field on the Absheron Peninsula and oil refining capacities in the vicinity of Baku.
- Baltic Pipeline Network. The design throughput is 74 million tons of oil per year. It connects the seaport of Primorsk with oil fields in Western Siberia and the Ural-Volga region.
- Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean - a pipeline connecting the Siberian fields with the bulk port of Kozmino near Nakhodka. The pipeline operator is Transneft, JSC. The length of 4188 km makes it possible to export Russian oil to the markets of the Asia-Pacific region and the USA.
- The Druzhba oil pipeline is the largest system of trunk pipelines in the world built to supply oil and oil products to the socialist states of Eastern Europe. Now operated for export to Europe.
- Grozny - Tuapse - the first Russian main medium-diameter oil pipeline, built back in the early twentieth century to transport Caucasian oil to the Black Sea coast.
- The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) connects fields in western Kazakhstan with a terminal on the Black Sea coast near Novorossiysk.
- The Murmansk pipeline with a throughput capacity of 80 million tons connects the oil fields of Western Siberia and the seaport of Murmansk.
- Surgut - Polotsk is an oil pipeline connecting Western Siberia with Belarus and further the Baltic countries and Poland.
- The one of a kind heated trunk oil pipeline Uzen - Atyrau - Samara.
Export via oil pipelines
Currently, Russian pipelines account for 84% of oil exported outside the country. The remaining 13% falls on rail transportation and 3% on water and river transport. Transneft, JSC 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 sales markets in Europe. Of the total transport system, 46.7 thousand km are oil pipelines and 19.3 thousand km are oil product pipelines.
Major Russian oil pipelines involved in export:
- Baltic oil pipeline, throughput - 74 million tons per year;
- Pipeline system "Friendship". One of the branches of this highway goes to Poland, the second to Slovakia. Total throughput - 90 million tons;
- Black Sea oil pipelines - 43 million tons.
The most promising direction for the development of Russian oil exports is East Siberian, due to the vibrant growth in oil consumption in China.