Oil Pipelines

The evolution of Caspian Sea basin energy transmission networks is entering a crucial phase. Azerbaijan is the crucible where questions concerning the future structure of geo-economic relations in Eurasia (and also therefore crucial aspects of the general geopolitical structure of world politics) are today being resolved. Azerbaijan’s significance arises both from the volume of its natural energy resources and from its irreplaceable role as a bridge from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea basin to the Black Sea basin and Europe. Most recently, this significance has only been underlined by the implementation of a multi-vectored energy export strategy. Long-term and short-term historical perspectives put into relief the significance of the expanding geo-economic energy relations between Greater Central Asia and Greater Southwest Asia.

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New and multi-dimensional threats such as ethnic conflicts, civil wars and terrorism which emerged after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 have urged a closer cooperation between Turkey and the U.S., the two old allies of the Cold War period. Although these new areas of cooperation have proved to be insufficient to construct a “strategic partnership” between the two countries – as seen in the latest Iraqi crisis in 2003 - it is also true that Ankara and Washington have provided a greater degree of support for each other in several issue areas compared to the Cold war years. Among these, probably the most outstanding one has turned out to be the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Project (BTC) which, when completed, is planned to carry the oil extracted from the Caspian Sea coast to the Western markets through a pipeline via Turkey.

The special issue, “Energy Humanities,” gathers experimental and brief accounts of the cultural history of energy in order to figure new research in the emerging fields of Environmental and Energy Humanities. From plastics to oil and literature, pedagogy to pipelines and activism, loving oil to understanding energy infrastructure, this collection offers a snapshot of the various ways one might approach questions of energy in the humanities.

This paper represents a “studying-up” of the controversy over federal regulatory processes regarding protection of Lakota and Dakota cultural heritage in permitting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). To analyze this controversy, I engage with interest-convergence theory, a component of Critical Race Theory, alongside a critique of its arguably simplistic definition of “white interests.” Agreeing that we need a finer-grained understanding of elite interests as multiple, conflicting, and not always based purely in material self-interest, I argue that interests should be understood as nonhuman components of elite assemblages, shaped by both emotions and societal ideologies yet constrained by – and in conflict with – top-down, ideology-driven missions and institutional cultural norms, as well as pressure from other assemblages. I use this framework to examine conflicts within and among various elite assemblages’ interests surrounding Lakota and Dakota cultural heritage. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s emotion- and ideology-driven interests in demonstrating sensitivity to tribes’ concerns were constrained by their mission-driven interests in accomplishing duties in a timely manner. These interests, in turn, conflicted with concerns (or lack thereof) manifested by other federal entities (Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, D.C. District Court) about DAPL’s impacts on cultural heritage, and with the company’s and federal government’s financial interests in pressuring USACE to enable completion of the pipeline’s construction. I unpack power differentials and dynamics among these various groups, as realized through particular interpretations and implementations of relevant legislation. I suggest that examining such “conflicts of interests” within and between elite assemblages, within the legal production of space, can elucidate controversies over industrial expansion’s socio-environmental threats.

Natural hazards can impact oil transmission pipelines with potentially adverse consequences on the population and the environment. They can also cause significant economic impacts to pipeline operators. Currently, there is only limited historical information available on the dynamics of natural hazard impact on pipelines and Action A6 of the EPCIP 2012 Programme aimed at shedding light on this issue.
For this purpose this study focused on the collection and analysis of hazardous liquid and natural gas transmission pipeline incident data. During the study, European and U.S. incident data sources were reviewed, relevant data was collected, and imported into a specifically developed database-driven incident data analysis system. The analysis system and preliminary results of the incident data analysis were reported in the first year final report of the study. This report presents the findings of the second year of the study that focused on onshore hazardous liquid transmission pipeline natechs, with special emphasis on natural hazard impact and damage modes, incident consequences, and lessons learned for scenario building.
Due to the low number of incidents, the European incident data alone was not sufficient to identify natural-hazard specific impact and failure modes at the oil pipeline components and to develop representative natech scenarios. For this reason, data on U.S. pipeline natech incidents was included in this study. Although the dominating natural hazards vary due to geological and climatic differences, the additional use of U.S. data allowed a more complete analysis, the results of which are equally applicable to the European oil pipeline network for selected natural hazards.
The analysis of the data available for Europe showed that natechs constitute 4% of all reported oil and petroleum product pipeline incidents in Europe in the last 40 years (1971-2012). The total number of identified natechs is 20. Recent natechs are rare and there is only one pipeline natech incident since 1995. 90% of the natechs involve the pipe body, whereas the remainder involves pump stations. There are no reported natechs at intermediate storage facilities. Geological hazards were the primary trigger (65%), followed by hydrological (20%) and climatic hazards (10%). Meteorological hazards played a minor role. The main incident initiators among geological hazards were landslides and the rest was mostly subsidence events primarily affecting elements other than the pipe body. No earthquake related natech was reported. All hydrological incidents were related to floods and no other water-related hazards such as stream scouring was observed. Although cold weather conditions are common in Europe, only hot weather related climatic natechs were reported that were relatively minor compared to other natechs.
The total amount of crude oil and petroleum products released due to natech incidents was 6,000 m³, 40% of which was subsequently recovered. The median release volume was 120 m³ and at least half of the released amount was recovered in 75% of the incidents. The total estimated cost of the natech incidents at oil and petroleum product pipelines in Europe as corrected for inflation is about 40 million Euro. The highest cost for a single event is 14.4 million Euro while the median cost is 0.8 million Euro.
The analysis of the U.S. Department of Transportation hazardous liquid transmission pipeline incident data for a period of 25 years (1986-2012) showed that there were 387 natechs corresponding to about 5.5% of all pipeline incidents. The vulnerability of pipeline network components varies significantly with natural hazard and system types. Unlike in Europe, meteorological hazards were the main trigger, resulting in the highest number of incidents (40%) and the highest total cost (60%). Geological and climatic hazards were other major hazards with about 20% contribution each. However, climatic natechs resulted in less than 10% of the total release and the corresponding total cost was even more insignificant (2%). While hydrological hazard triggered incidents occurred less
frequently, their consequences were significant and correspond to one third of the total release and overall cost.
The analysis also showed that the susceptibility to natural hazards is not uniform among the different hazardous liquid pipeline network parts (e.g. pipe run, pumping/metering stations, and intermediate tank farms/terminals). All incidents related to hydrological hazards involved the main pipeline body; the same holds for incidents caused by geological hazards with more than 75%. However, in case of meteorological and climatic natechs, the distribution shifts towards incidents involving aboveground storage tanks. About 50% of meteorological and 40% of climatic natechs occurred at such tanks, followed by pumping and metering stations with more than 20%. The total amount of hazardous substance released due to the natech incidents was about 50,875 m³ (320,000 barrels) resulting in 590 million USD economic damage.
The overall analysis showed that:
• There is a tendency to underreport natural hazards as causes of incidents.
• Although they occur less frequently, the consequences of natechs can be comparatively more significant than for other pipeline incidents.
• The natural hazard damage susceptibility of pipeline systems differs with system type.
• Natural hazards do not impact all pipeline system parts equally and some parts are more and even sometimes only susceptible to selected types of natural hazards.
• Impact mechanisms at pipeline system parts other than the pipe run are not specific to pipelines and are similar to their counterparts at fixed industrial plants.
• Earthquakes are perceived to be a major threat to pipelines but historical data shows that they have not or very rarely triggered natech incidents in hazardous liquid transmission pipelines.
• Besides directly triggering incidents, natural hazards can also aggravate other incidents by accelerating causes, facilitating transport of spilled substances, or hampering response and recovery operations.
• Slow onset hazards and the variation in time of some natural hazards should be considered during the design and operation of pipeline systems, which typically have a very long operational life.
• Regulatory measures for the construction and operation of pipeline systems that consider possible time-varying natural hazard risks and impose comprehensive reporting obligations are necessary for the proper prevention and mitigation of pipeline natechs.
• Detailed incident and natural hazard data should be made available for the proper analysis of pipeline natech incidents, especially for regional or global studies.
• Besides data availability, data quality and explicit data limitations are equally important and should be carefully evaluated during the analysis.
• Pipeline operators should periodically update and complete incident reports if previously unknown or more accurate information becomes available, and competent authorities should encourage and actively follow this process.
• In order to support the lessons learning process, operators should be encouraged to also share information on near misses or incidents below the reporting threshold.
For this study, a database-driven incident data analysis system was developed to rapidly review, categorise, and query incident records according to their causes and consequences, and link them to related supplementary data. The system provides an automated pre-selection of incidents of potential interest using data mining methods. This can be supplemented by an expert review for manual confirmation of data accuracy, which can be carried out by multiple experts simultaneously. Using this analysis system, about 1,400 fully reviewed and categorised oil and natural gas transmission pipeline natech records were identified from the European and U.S. incident data. Similarly, approximately 2,150 natural gas distribution incidents were also identified as possible natechs and are ready for more detailed peer-review. In addition to onshore incidents, all data sets include offshore incidents, as well. Therefore, the occurrence mechanisms and consequences of offshore pipeline natechs can be studied. As a by-product of the data collection process, the database furthermore includes over 800,000 U.S. National Response Centre incident reports from all causes in industrial and transportation activities, which are automatically classified in the same way as the pipeline incident records. The database is available for future studies and is especially useful for providing case-specific natech data, which is scarce in the scientific literature and in the existing accident databases.

This book examines the gender dimensions of large-scale mining in the oil industry and how oil exploitation has produced long-term economic, political, social and environmental risks and benefits in developing countries. It also shows that these risks and benefits have been unequally distributed between women and men. This project maps the ongoing dialogue between women’s issues and resource management, particularly, oil. The author attempts to answer the following questions: What are the impacts of oil projects on women in oil-rich countries? How can these impacts be explained? How can these impacts be reduced?

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The generation of the refinery operation plan requires the capability to monitor and determine the quality and the composition of crude oil tanks to be processed into the Crude Unit as well as of the related availability date.
The batches fed to the CDUs must both fit quality constraints set by the operative department (for safe, smooth and long-lasting operation) and simultaneously maximise the content of “Opportunity” crude oils (providing high processing margins).
Poor scheduling can erode up to 5% of the theoretical monthly result predicted by LP planning models; can result in a higher ship demurrage cost; thus crude oil logistics optimisation is fundamental, especially when the available crude inventories are limited and it is difficult to segregate crude quality.
Prometheus has developed a tool (PRORAF™) that offers an innovative algorithm that manages concurrently crude oil logistic events (reception, transfer, and processing) and predicts the hourly evolution of the status of all the tanks.
Crude data, simulation, and optimisation techniques are appropriately integrated by an algorithm that is also able to work "high-level" transfer instructions where the sequences of tank loading/unloading operations are not detailed.
The calculation engine manages the service requests associated with material transfers (according to specified priorities and selection criteria) to bring each event to completion as fast as possible.
This simulation highlights the real bottlenecks to manage to prevent operational problems.
The software is innovative because it can solve autonomously the big part of the scheduling problem, requiring the user’s intervention only to manage the significant issues requiring appropriate actions.
Furthermore, the proper integration of “economically driven” optimisation methods generates operation plans maximising the processing of opportunity crudes still respecting CDU feedstock quality requirements.
The dramatic saving of time resulting from its application permits to explore more alternative options resulting in a more effective and optimised scheduling plan:
This tool correctly supports in the same environment and with the same model the development of both Long and Short term scheduling tasks:
• Long term scheduling models can calculate and update in a few minutes the evolution of the status of all the tanks and pipelines of the logistic network. It is a perfect tool to define cargo arrival dates and to identify solutions in case of unforeseen operative changes.
• Short term scheduling models enable issuing detailed instruction reports as well to store validated operation results (that is, the actually executed operations) into a centralised historical database which can provide the information to reproduce details of the past activity.
The paper describes this technology and reports a case study illustrating its implementation for the scheduling of crude supply operations of an Indian Petrochemical Refining complex.
This operator receives into its maritime deposit a considerable variety of crude oils of extremely variable quality (in terms of sulphur content, acidity, and API degrees). The number of available tanks does not enable the proper quality segregation, therefore each tank’s evolving composition must be tracked.
Concurrently to cargo reception some other tanks are unloaded and fed in parallel (three to five pumping channels) to a pipeline. The blend resulting from parallel pumping must respect the quality constraints required by CDU processing at the other side of the Pipeline. The batches exiting the Pipeline can either be fed directly to the crude unit or go to the Refinery deposit.

This book focuses on the analysis and design of advanced techniques for on-line automatic computational monitoring of pipelines and pipe networks. It discusses how to improve the systems’ security considering mathematical models of the flow, historical flow rate and pressure data, with the main goal of reducing the number of sensors installed along a pipeline. The techniques presented in the book have been implemented in digital systems to enhance the abilities of the pipeline network’s operators in recognizing anomalies. A real leak scenario in a Mexican water pipeline is used to illustrate the benefits of these techniques in locating the position of a leak. Intended for an interdisciplinary audience, the book addresses researchers and professionals in the areas of mechanical, civil and control engineering. It covers topics on fluid mechanics, instrumentation, automatic control, signal processing, computing, construction and diagnostic technologies.

Analysis of oil pipelines laid in Eurasia evidence Caspian Sea states broke Russia’s oil monopoly in the Caspian Sea in a span of less than a decade —namely Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. While Baku-Novorossiysk Pipeline maintained Russia’s position while transporting Azerbaijani Caspian oil, the first fissure occurred in 1998 with Baku-Supsa Pipeline and the opening up of rail routes from Baku to Batumi and Supsa. A second took place when Caspian Pipeline Consortium opened in 2001, carrying Kazakhstani oil to the Black Sea via Russia. The third came about in 2006, with Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan finally breaking Russia’s monopoly and bypassing the Bosporus-Dardanelles bottleneck. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are developing trans-Caspian oil shipping from Aktau to BTC, that in 2016 was 80% fulfilled—and committed to building a trans-Caspian pipeline. These routes provide the Silk Road region with competitive and diverse routes that undermine Russia’s position. ========
Análisis de los oleoductos desarrollados en Eurasia muestran que los estados del Mar Caspio rompieron el monopolio ruso sobre el petróleo del Mar Caspio en menos de una década —en específico Azerbaiyán y Kazakhstán. En tanto el oleducto Bakú-Novorossiysk mantuvo la posición rusa al transportar petróleo azerbaiyano del Caspio, la primera fisura ocurrió en 1998 con Bakú-Supsa y la apertura de rutas férreas entre Bakú y Batumi y Supsa. Una segunda sucedió en 2001, al transportar petróleo kazajo al Mar Negro a través de Rusia. La tercera sucedió en 2006 con Bakú-Tbilisi-Ceyhán finalmente rompiendo el monopolio ruso y evitando el cuello de botella en el Bósforo y los Dardanelos. Kazakhstán y Azerbaiyán están desarrollando transporte de petróleo del Caspio de Aktau a BTC, que en 2016 ya estaba cubierto al 80% y comprometidos a construir un oleoducto trans-Caspio. Estas rutas ofrecen a la región de la Ruta de la Seda con vías competitivas y diversas que minan la posición de Rusia.

This book focuses on the analysis and design of advanced techniques for on-line automatic computational monitoring of pipelines and pipe networks. It discusses how to improve the systems’ security considering mathematical models of the flow, historical flow rate and pressure data, with the main goal of reducing the number of sensors installed along a pipeline. The techniques presented in the book have been implemented in digital systems to enhance the abilities of the pipeline network’s operators in recognizing anomalies. A real leak scenario in a Mexican water pipeline is used to illustrate the benefits of these techniques in locating the position of a leak. Intended for an interdisciplinary audience, the book addresses researchers and professionals in the areas of mechanical, civil and control engineering. It covers topics on fluid mechanics, instrumentation, automatic control, signal processing, computing, construction and diagnostic technologies.

This paper presents a novel method for diagnosing leaks in a pipeline. The method is based on a discrete-space version of a Liénard-type model, which describes the fluid behavior in a pipeline only in terms of the flow rate. This latter detail was very useful in designing our method, which was conceived to deal with pipelines solely equipped with flowmeters or in conjunction with pressure sensors, but which are temporarily out of service. The working principle of our methodology is the generation of a set of residuals (each one defined for a specific section of the pipeline) to estimate the position of a leak. The residual near zero will indicate the section where a leak is occurring. The main advantage of our approach is that it does not require pressure measurements, which occurs in most existing methodologies. Thus, to show its potential, we present the results of some tests carried out in simulation.

Recent research on multilateral cooperation and development reveals several ways that international institutions can help to address and resolve common problems. For promoting Caspian energy development, the two most important ways are to increase governmental concern and to enhance the contractual environment.

Pipeline Integrity Assessment has remained key to both the Regulators and Operators in the Oil and Gas Industry.

Whilst the regulators have over the years watched for conformance to stated regulatory standards, various Operators are cut between regulating OPEX whilst also ensuring Integrity.

We as Integrity professionals are thus saddled with finding a middle ground for obeying the Government Regulation alongside ensuring the continuous integrity of fixed assets.

There has been a lack of attention to the role of la sorcellerie (witchcraft) and the occult in geographical work on extraction, power and resistance, despite the ways in which these epistemologies inform conceptions of power, wealth and violence. In two towns along the Chad–Cameroon Oil Pipeline, epistemologies of la sorcellerie frame understandings and critiques of the invisible actors and processes that effect the pipeline's uneven distributions of violence, wealth and risk. Far from expunging the experience(s) of extraction by erasing the pipeline's visible traces on the landscape, the oil consortium's infrastructural and discursive erasures serve to situate the pipeline within a knowledge system that associates invisible actors and materials with evil, wrongdoing, suspicion and distrust. This article addresses (i) how the production of dispersed extractive landscapes reinforce epistemologies of witchcraft by alienating the people who live within them from networks of power in ways that provoke a mistrust and jealousy that is absorbed within families and communities and (ii) the socio-political significance of this epistemological structuring of the pipeline as a logic of resistance against hydrocarbon capitalism.

Fault detection and isolation (FDI) in oil pipeline systems (OPS) is a very critical issue because faults in these systems such as leaks or equipment malfunctions may cause significant safety accidents and economic losses. These are the challenging factors, along with the environmental regulations for developing efficient FDI approaches for OPS. This paper proposes a model-based distributed FDI approach, which uses a structural model of the system in conjunction with algorithms to generate diagnostic tests that may be implemented in local diagnosers along the OPS. The proposed approach allows detection and isolation of faults in pipeline sections (pipeline segments), pump stations, as well as process control equipment. In this way, simulation of the obtained diagnostic tests in a benchmark application shows that all faults of interest (pipeline segment faults and sensor faults) are detected and isolated.

The material is in Russian. Its original title is "Проблема контроля качества нефти". It's an expert comment given to Institute  for Development of Energy Industry (Russia). Original link: https://irttek.ru/expertiza/problema-kontrolya-kachestva-nefti.html

Natural hazards can be initiating events for accidents in oil and gas pipelines. Severe past incidents bear testimony to the risk associated with pipeline accidents triggered by natural hazards (natechs). Post-incident analysis is a valuable tool for better understanding the causes, dynamics and impacts of such accidents. To identify the main triggers of onshore transmission pipeline natechs in the USA, natural gas and hazardous liquid incident reports collected by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration were analyzed. Potential natech incidents were identified by automated data-mining followed by expert review. The analysis covered ~21,000 incidents, about 6% of which were identified as natechs. Geological hazards triggered 50% of the identified natechs, followed by meteorological (25%), climatic (11%), and hydrological (11%) hazards. Landslides are the main geological hazard with 43% of the incidents within the category. Among meteorological hazards, lightning is the major hazard with 36%. 84% of the hydrological hazard related natechs were found to be due to floods. Cold-related hazards make up 93% of the natechs caused by adverse climatic conditions. Some preliminary qualitative results on consequences are provided as well.

The shift from oil to gas has inevitably led to the emergence of regional energy politics with
a growing number of stakeholders involved in influencing and shaping the energy security
discussion. What used to be predominantly the sovereign decision of a state has now become
a subject of discussion which, owing to geological, political and often security constraints,
may have an effect on the success of a policy. The regional aspect of energy politics is
particularly potent with regard to natural gas. This is especially the case with regard to the
broader geographical space comprising of the Eastern Neighborhood, the Mediterranean and
the Black Sea/Caspian region. With the world’s largest proven gas reserves to be found in
this tripartite ‘Shared Neighborhood’, inevitably the dynamics of natural gas politics have
conflated, demanding new solutions.

Since September 2011, the Eurasian gas market has been facing shocking bi-monthly announcements: on September 23, British Petroleum (BP) announced the South East Europe Pipeline (SEEP); on December 26, Turkish and Azeri authorities announced their joint agreement for the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP); and on February 26, the Shah Deniz II Consortium announced it was undertaking exclusive negotiations with the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).

The shock wave intensified when the Turkish Energy Minister hinted that a new agreement allowing Russia to build its own South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea using Turkish territorial waters was in the works.

Now the ultimate question of the Eurasian energy market is: “Which of these projects will be built?”

This policy brief seeks to answer this question by analyzing Turkey’s standing in Eurasian energy diplomacy in the perspective of energy transit projects competing for building the Southern Energy Corridor of gas transit from the Caspian zone to Europe. First, I present a short review of Turkish strategy in Eurasian energy diplomacy. Secondly, I detail the driving forces behind Turkish energy policy. I then conclude with some remarks about different scenarios of Turkish energy policy in the framework of the Southern Energy Corridor.

This article is a follow up piece on the article titled “New Directions in Fisheries Act Policy and Law: An Overview of the November 2015 Federal ECCC Mandate Letter & Proposed Legislative Reforms” authored by David McRobert and Julian Tennent-Riddell and published by Influents in September 2017.  The article provides a preliminary analysis of Bill C-68, tabled in the Canadian Parliament  in early February 2018. The federal government promises that the effect of Bill C-68 will be “to restore lost protections and incorporate modern safeguards.”

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One of the environmental laws in Canada that has attracted considerable attention in the past decade is the federal Fisheries Act . In the late 2000s, the Major Projects Management Office established by the federal government identified the federal Fisheries Act as a primary obstacle to the development of new infrastructure such as pipelines, roads, shipping terminals, LNG facilities, electricity transmission lines, mines and other large projects that the federal and provincial governments sought to promote.

To respond to industry and government concerns, Bill C-38, the 2012 Budget Implementation Act enacted by the federal government made numerous changes to the Fisheries Act and bundled them with amendments to 68 other laws, creating a massive omnibus bill. 

Despite advice from federal civil servants, the federal government decided unilaterally, consistent with the advice of its Major Projects Management Office and with the support of major industry lobby groups and Cabinet, to forgo consultation that might have led to compromise and increased legitimacy.

Critics immediately identified numerous flaws in the legislation which have been described elsewhere.  Environmental and aboriginal groups, fisheries scientists and academics and others highlighted the lack of consultation, the lack of compromise (no changes were ever made to the proposed amendments), and the parliamentary process of bundling amendments to 69 laws into one budget bill and predicted that these changes would eventually require future legislative and regulatory surgery.

To its credit, the Justin Trudeau government has taken an entirely different approach to amending the Fisheries Act and proposing changes to reverse the impact of the 2012 changes. In early February 2018, after extensive consultations pursuant to Canada’s Review of Environmental and Regulatory Processes the federal government tabled draft legislation intended to ensure that the Fisheries Act provides ‘strong and meaningful’ protection for fish and fish habitat, promotes the long-term sustainability of marine resources, and improves certainty for industry.

On February 6, 2018, Bill C-68 was introduced by the federal government “to restore lost protections and incorporate modern safeguards.”  Bill C-68 amendments to fisheries legislation are significant, and serve to undo many of the changes enacted in the Jobs, Growth, and Long-term Prosperity Act  by the previous Harper government. Notably, Bill C-68 returns the pre-2012 fish habitat protection provisions (the prohibition on the ‘harmful alteration, disruption or destruction’ of fish habitat, often referred to as ‘HADD’).

The Bill proposes to replace s. 35(1) with the following:

“35 (1) No person shall carry on any work, undertaking or activity that results in the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat.”

Further, the habitation protection and pollution prevention provisions of Bill C-68 Act will again apply, as they did pre-2012, to all Canadian fisheries waters, restoring the comprehensive protection against harming all fish and fish habitat, (not only aboriginal, commercial and recreational fisheries, as was the case post-2012).  The prohibition on the deposit of deleterious substances, which has been in places since 1977, remains intact under Bill C-68. Certain additions which were made in 2012, such as increased penalties, an extended limitation period, and broader self-reporting requirements, have been maintained under Bill C-68.

[Streszczenie] Artykuł dotyczy roli ropo- i gazociągów w dzisiejszej polityce państw z Europy i Azji. Artykuł rozpoczyna się krótkim wprowadzeniem do jego tematyki, w którym autor nakreśla treść tekstu, a także wskazuje niezwykle istotną rolę ropy naftowej i gazu ziemnego we współczesnej gospodarce oraz w kształtowaniu relacji między państwami i podmiotami uczestniczącymi w stosunkach międzynarodowych. Zasadniczą część artykułu podzielono na trzy części. Pierwsza z nich, na podstawie danych statystycznych dotyczących produkcji, eksportu oraz importu obu surowców, przybliża ich istotę dla współczesnego świata. W drugiej autor opisuje sieć istotniejszych rurociągów pokrywających Europę i Azję. Natomiast w trzeciej części przeanalizowana zostaje polityka poszczególnych państw i podmiotów realizowana przy użyciu ropo- i gazociągów. Artykuł kończy się podsumowaniem zawartych w nim informacji. [Abstract] The article concerns the role as oil and gas pipelines in today's politics of Europe and Asia. Article begins with a brief introduction to the subject, in which the author outlines the content of the text, and also indicates the crucial role of oil and gas in the contemporary economy and the shaping of relations between states and actors involved in international relations. The main part of the article is divided into three parts. The first part, on the basis of statistics on production, exports and imports of both raw materials, brings the essence of the contemporary world. In the second, the author describes most significant pipeline network covering Europe and Asia. In the third analyzed the policies of individual countries and entities developed using as oil and gas pipelines. The article ends with a summary of the information contained therein.

Iraqi Kurdistan has fairly suddenly become a magnet for international oil companies (IOCs), who are increasingly turning their back on the central government in Bagdhad and seeking their fortunes in Erbil. The reasons for this change have to do with Bagdhad’s inability to create a reliable investment framework, but they are also geopolitical in nature. With the Syrian crisis, two alliances have formed in the region: the Ankara-Erbil axis, supported by the US and the Gulf States and the Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus axis. As a result, energy investments in Kurdistan will inevitably have political overtones, as they will serve as support for one party over the other.

Переход от нефти к газу неизбежно привел к возникновению региональной энергетической политики с растущим числом заинтересованных сторон, влияющих на формирование и обсуждение энергетической безопасности. То, что раньше было по преимуществу суверенным решением государства, теперь стало предметом дебатов, которые в силу ограничений геологических и политических, а также связанных с вопросами безопасности, могут оказать воздействие на успех политики. Региональный аспект энергетической политики является особенно действенным в отношении природного газа. В частности, это относится к большому географическому пространству, которое охватывает Восточное соседство, Средиземноморье, Черноморский и Каспийский регионы. При наличии в данном трехстороннем общем соседстве крупнейших в мире разведанных запасов газа, динамики политической деятельности по природному газу неизбежно объединяются, требуя принятия новых решений.

Every once in a while in sidewalks and streets of our country’s cities and even rural areas, we are witnessing various drillings from different city organizations and institutes including municipalities, electricity companies, and etc. These drillings that are being done for different reasons such as creating pipeline networks for transferring water, sewage, natural gas and even transfer and distribution of petroleum fuels including raw oil and in some cases for cable lines of electricity and telecommunications, it might be for the first time and in fact for constructing and installing new pipelines and cable lines or that due to defects and damages to existing underground pipes and cables, it would be necessary to drill, excavate and exchange or repair networks.

This article presents novel results on the detection and isolation of single leaks in a pipeline with a branch junction by measuring only the flow rate and pressure at the ends of the line. For the solution of this realistic issue, which commonly occurs in pipeline networks, the position of the branch junction and its flow rate are supposed to be known. The idea consists of deriving a model with the branch position as a reference point such that the leak position can be characterized for two possible orientations (upstream and downstream of the branch junction) with only one parameter: a deviation from a prescribed nominal position located between one of the pipeline ends and the branch. The proposed methodology includes three detection observers. One is designed to detect only the orientation of the leak with respect to the branch junction, and the other two observers are designed from referenced third-order models with only one deviation parameter to be estimated. Simulation and experimental results show the performance of the proposition.

If three energy ministers gather around a table for over an hour and half, there should be some serious energy problems on the agenda. This was especially true for the first session of the Atlantic Council Energy and Economics Summit, held on November 15 and 16 in Istanbul, on a panel dedicated to Europe’s energy security.
Taner Yildiz, Yuriy Boyko, and Natiq Aliyev (Turkey, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan’s ministers in charge of energy politics) discussed Europe’s energy security in the absence of their European counterparts. Three ministers agreed publicly on their willingness to cooperate on the southern energy corridor and to support the EU in reducing its energy security vulnerability