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01 April 2004

Pipeline project flows in Amazon

Along Peru's Lower Urubamba River, parallel curves of the dual Camisea pipelines shoot into the surrounding Amazon, making their way through the jungle.

From underground reserves more than a mile deep, natural gas and natural gas liquid will flow through two Camisea pipelines under the control of a flow computer that will help exploit underground resources so natural gas can travel to Peru's coast, where natural gas and natural gas liquid will get processed and sold.

ISI-Solutions, the system integrator for the project, focused the project on automation that combined control and flow computers to integrate, operate, and maintain pipeline control.

The Camisea project is massive, with dual parallel pipelines that cover 550 kilometers and three geographic zones. The pipelines begin in the jungles of Malvinas in the Amazon rainforest. There, they transverse the Andes Mountains as two parallel pipelines. Both pipelines eventually hug the Pacific coastline and make their way toward two destinations.

Camisea's natural gas liquid (NGL) pipeline ends in Playa Lobería, whereas Camisea's natural gas (NG) pipeline winds further northward toward Lurín.

The pipeline construction phase should wrap up by August this year. Once workers finish pipeline construction, the natural gas line will transport 285 million cubic feet per day, while the NGL line will push 50,000 barrels per day.

Developing Camisea began with the discovery of the Camisea natural gas field in the late 1980s. Years of planning and development gave birth to the Camisea Natural Gas and Natural Gas Liquid Transportation System, which will capture and transport the gas in those fields to processing stations and distribution markets located along the Peruvian coast.

The NGL pipeline has one scraper launcher, one pumping station with a mass metering system, three pumping stations without metering systems, two pressure reduction stations, one receiving station at Playa Lobería, three scraping stations, and 19 block valve sites. The NG pipeline has one pressure control station, five scraping stations, one receiving and measuring station at Lurín, four fuel gas modules for feed NGL pump stations, and 22 block valve sites. Because fuel gas will be supplied to power the NGL pumps, a metering system will provide the final mass balance along the NG line. In addition, a liquid mass metering system will be supplied for each pumping station to cross-check the leak detection system.

The pipeline supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system has two control centers; the primary control center will be the Lurín Main Control Center (MCC) at Lima City Gate (Lurín), and the secondary will be the Ayacucho Contingency Control Center (CCC), located in the surroundings of Ayacucho city. The CCC will come in play in case of a major problem at the MCC location or an interruption of communications to the MCC.

Local control systems will control both Camisea pipelines and bring information to the SCADA host system at the control centers to supervise those pipelines and their associated facilities: receiving, pumping, scraping, and block valve stations.

Because the pipelines run parallel and close to each other for 550 kilometers, in many instances they will share a common local control system (i.e., a common remote terminal unit or programmable logic controller). DT

Nick Belardes from Bakersfield, Calif.–based ProSoft Technology wrote this dispatch.