Minimising the Environmental Impact of Oil and Gas Pipelines

The chapter focuses on the environmental challenges facing the design and construction of major pipeline projects within the oil and gas industry.  The methods discussed for mitigating the environmental impact of these projects cover improved processes, materials and the use of emerging technology.

The first section introduces the challenges facing today's pipeline engineer in the design, construction and operation of long distance hazardous fluid pipelines.  One of the environmental challenges for pipelines is that of soil erosion, primarily due to storm events prior to the bio-restoration of the pipeline right of way.

The second section looks at mitigation of the soil erosion risk through the early assessment of the potential soil loss using remote sensed data and geographical information systems (GIS), thereby enabling the issue of soil erosion to be considered during the route selection process.  

In the final section, the advantage of the selection of higher-grade steel for the pipeline is presented.  This not only reduces the cost of the pipeline but also has the potential to reduce the use of natural resources during steel manufacture and reduce the carbon footprint of the project through reduced transportation requirements.