Technology/R&D

How Network Segmentation Improves Operational Security For Pipelines

Network segmentation is a fundamental component of cybersecurity, yet it is so difficult to implement in a gas and pipeline environment. There is flawed thinking in part due to an industry-wide focus on perimeter security, a carryover from the days of air gap protection.

Tablets In The Field: Pipeline Post-Construction Restoration Monitoring Case Study

For over a decade, surveyors across many disciplines (biologists, geologists, archeologists, engineers, etc.) have relied on the same traditional methods for collecting field data, which typically includes carrying a handheld GPS unit for identifying location coordinates, documenting findings in logbooks and taking photos using a digital camera.

Creative Responses To Provide Natural Gas

With the continuing expansion of natural gas development in shale plays across the nation, pipeline infrastructure continues to be built out, with product making the trek from source points to downstream consumers. However, not every end-user has access to affordable natural gas yet.

Achieving Vital Security With Cloud Services

Are your company’s business systems connected in any way to the industrial control systems (ICS), including Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), which are used to manage the company’s critical infrastructure? If they are, and the best guess is they are, then the ICS/SCADA could be vulnerable to cyberattacks in addition to the business side of the networks.

Editor's Notebook: Local Updates

I hope the industry is paying attention to some regionalized developments that could hamper activity, at least in the short term.

Energy Providers, Including Pipelines, Vulnerable To Malware

Financial services firms may have a slight edge in security readiness over their energy sector counterparts, but not by much. These two industries – highly targeted by cybercriminals – must move quickly to address their cybersecurity deficiencies and shore up their defenses against advanced malware threats.

Improving Cybersecurity Defenses In Oil And Gas Applications

In recent years, there have been a number of high-profile, advanced malware threats that targeted or attacked the energy sector such as Dragonfly, Stuxnet, Flame and Shamoon. And while these threats need to be taken into account when analyzing and preparing for potential security risks, they actually only account for a low number of overall threat sources.

In Turnaround, FERC Proposes to Allow Surcharges to Fund Modernization

In a departure from past policy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is considering allowing interstate pipelines to recoup the costs of complying with federal environmental and safety regulations.

What's New December 2014

New products and services from Digi International, Taxography, Heath Consultants, ESAB, Vacuworx, Puradyn, Latham & Watkins, Fecon, Victaulic, Kepware, Quest Integrity Group and more.

Determining Design Life Of Assemblies Of Polyethylene Pipe

Improvements in long-term performance of polyethylene (PE) piping compounds have created interest in the use of higher operating pressures for gas distribution piping systems. In Canada, this has culminated in the approval of PE 100 pipe with an operating pressure of 145 pounds per square inch gage (psig) for SDR 11 pipe, and the approval of PE 2708 PLUS and PE 4710 PLUS compounds that qualify for a 0.45 design factor for gas applications.

Dresser-Rand Noise Tests Largest Pipe Resonator Array Ever Produced

Dresser-Rand Group recently carried out a noise test for the largest pipe resonator array ever produced. Conducted on a 30-inch pipe, it was intended to confirm the estimated noise attenuation on a compressor operated by Norwegian-based Statoil.

Tandem Diagnostics, Repairs Solution Targets Gas Pipe Leaks

No one questions the need for utility companies to adopt a feasible, cost-effective solution for North America’s aging infrastructure. A recent study by <em>USA Today</em> points out that the consequence of mismanaging and ignoring the state of pipelines is nothing short of embarrassingly disastrous.

High-Tech Tools Have Key Place In Pipeline Routing

Extensive planning and coordination are involved in routing a pipeline. Many factors must be addressed in planning a route that incorporates landowner considerations, environmental factors and constructability issues.

GE Power & Water Celebrates Milestone

GE Power & Water’s Distributed Power business has shipped its 33,000th gas engine since first production 90 years ago. The milestone was celebrated Oct. 8 in conjunction with the High Horsepower Summit in New Orleans.

Add Longer-Term Value To Inline Inspection Through Mapping

Natural force damage from earth movement and heavy rains or floods accounts for only 8% of all pipeline failure incidents. However, these type of incidents account for 34% of all property damage.

Industrial Internet Technology For Safer, More Efficient Pipelines

GE and Accenture last month announced the launch of the Intelligent Pipeline Solution, the first-ever Industrial Internet offering to help pipeline operators make better decisions concerning the condition of their critical machines and assets in the oil and gas pipeline industry.

Remote Diagnostics Surveillance Improves Fiscal Assurance

In the high-risk environment of the oil and gas industry, an enormous amount of resources is employed and devoted to ensuring the environment, the assets we manage and our personnel are protected.

Traceability: A Technology, Requirement And Future For Pipelines

<em>“The overriding lesson: great software can fail if it is not paired with industry expertise.” – Brett Vogt, Project Consulting Services, Inc. </em> Whether they are people, places or things, there is nothing that can escape electronic scrutiny in the 21st century, pipelines included. With the right planning, personnel and software systems, both industry and government representatives agree that the tools are in place to maintain control and complete records for the North American, if the not the world’s, oil and natural gas pipelines.

Best Estimates: Developing New Quantification Protocol For Methane Emissions Reduction

Aggressive efforts are underway to reduce methane emissions from the natural gas sector and the industry is working on technologies and approaches for mitigating emissions. But it also must improve the way emissions are quantified. By establishing reasonable baselines, utilities will be able to provide more accurate reports about their emissions profiles and implement mitigation and reduction programs. GTI and its industry partners are working to update those baselines now.

Porous Material Polymerizes Carbon Dioxide At Natural Gas Wellheads

Rice University scientists have created an earth-friendly way to separate carbon dioxide from natural gas at wellheads. A porous material invented by the Rice laboratory of chemist James Tour sequesters carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, at ambient temperature – with pressure provided by the wellhead – and lets it go once the pressure is released. The material shows promise as a replacement for more costly and energy-intensive processes.

Wet Gas Testing Using Custom Liquids, Magnetically Driven Centrifugal Pumps

Wet gas meter calibrations are usually done using natural gas, kerosene and water. Increasingly, gas producers are questioning a meter’s ability to measure wet gas entrained with the unique liquids found on platforms and wellheads (viscous hydrocarbons, paraffin based/high-wax liquids, sea water, brine solutions, MEG and other custom liquids).

Flexibility, Ingenuity And Patience Bring Gas To Gotham

Spectra Energy’s 20-mile expansion of the Texas Eastern and Algonquin Gas Transmission pipelines from Linden, NJ to Manhattan cost $60 million per mile, but the money is just the beginning.

Improving Field Verification In Pipeline Integrity Management Programs

An inline inspection (ILI) project is not complete until the reported features are verified in the field. The process is important because inappropriate inspection techniques can invalidate an otherwise valid report.

Helping Operators Comply With New IVP Regulations

Last summer the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) previewed proposed additions to its integrity management program (IMP) which require operators to test pipe segments located in high-consequence areas (HCAs) and to “devote additional focus, efforts, and analysis … to ensure the integrity of [those] pipelines.”

Comparing Speed-Control Pig Cleaning With Hard-Bodied Cleaning Pig

The Southeast Supply Header (SESH) is a 42-inch and 36-inch natural gas pipeline originating at Carthage, TX and running 446 miles to a terminus at Coden, AL. SESH links the onshore natural gas supply basins of East Texas and northern Louisiana to markets predominantly served by offshore natural gas supplies from the Gulf of Mexico.

IEA Economist: Shale Gale Will Result In 20 Years of U.S. Dominance

IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol synthesized the agency’s 2013 World Energy Outlook and his own analysis to suggest that for the next 20 years, low energy costs caused by the early and plentiful development of shale gas and energy infrastructure will give the United States a large competitive advantage over other nations when it comes to attracting and developing business.

Accurate Pipeline Inspection Data Requires More Than A Pig

An often overlooked aspect of technology development in the pipeline inspection world, though one that usually turns out to be the most critical to success, is the people involved.

Big Data Challenges In Validation Safe, Secure Energy Infrastructure

The United States has some of the largest and oldest industrial infrastructure in the world, including its natural gas, oil, electrical and communications pipelines and wires more than 85% of which is controlled by private industry.

Developments Toward Unified Pipeline Risk Assessment Approach

A certain amount of standardization in any process can be beneficial to stakeholders. In the case of pipeline risk assessment, standardization establishes process acceptability. This leads to consistent and fair regulatory oversight as well as minimum levels of analysis rigor.

Industry Associations Asks Help With Oil Spill Surveillance

The global oil and gas industry needs better ways to plan for oil spill surveillance, and it’s looking to the airborne remote sensing and commercial satellite industries for help.

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