I. Answer the following questions before reading the text.

1. What are pipelines used for?

2. When were the first pipelines invented?

3. Why is the pipeline transportation of hydrocarbons so popular?

4. What are the main problems in transporting hydrocarbons through pipelines?

II. You are going to read the text about pipelines. For each of the questions choose the answer (a, b, c or d) which you think best fits according to the text.

Oil and natural gas pipelines

T here is some argument as to when the first real oil pipeline was constructed. Some say the pipeline transport was pioneered by Vladimir Shukhov and the Branobel Company in the late 19th century. Others say oil pipelines originated when the Oil Transport Association first constructed a 2-inch (51 mm) wrought iron pipeline over a 6-mile (9.7 km) track from an oil field in Pennsylvania to a railroad station in Oil Creek, in the 1860s. No matter, pipelines are generally the most economical way to transport large quantities of oil or natural gas over land. Compared to the railroad, they have a lower cost per unit as well as a higher capacity. Although pipelines can be built even under the sea, that process is both economically and technically very demanding, so the majority of oil at sea is transported by tanker ships.

Oil pipelines are made from steel or plastic tubes with inner diameter typically from 10 to 120 cm (about 4 to 47 inches). Most of the pipelines are buried underground at a typical depth of about 1 - 2 metres (about 3 to 6 feet). The oil is kept in motion by a system of pump stations built along the pipeline and usually flows at a speed of about 1 to 6 m/s. Multi-product pipelines are used to transport two or more different products in sequence in the same pipeline. Usually in multi-product pipelines there is no physical separation between the different products. Some mixing of adjacent products occurs, producing interface. This interface is removed from the pipeline at receiving facilities and segregated to prevent contamination.

Crude oil contains varying amounts of wax, or paraffin, and in colder climates wax buildup may occur within a pipeline. Often these pipelines are inspected and cleaned using pipeline inspection gauges or ‘pigs’, also known as, ‘scrapers’ or ‘go-devils’. These devices are launched from pig-launcher stations and travel through the pipeline to be received at any other station down-streams, cleaning wax depositions and materials that may have accumulated within the line.

For natural gas, pipelines are similarly constructed of carbon steel and varying in size from 2 inches (51 mm) to 48 inches (1,200 mm) in diameter depending on the type of the pipeline. The gas is pressurized by compressor stations located along the pipelines and is odorless unless mixed with a mercaptan odorant where identified by the proper regulating body.

1. When and who constructed the first world’s oil pipeline?

1. The Romans in antiquity.

2. Vladimir Shukhov in 1860.

3. The Oil Transport Association in Pennsylvania in the late 18^th Century.

4. It is still a question which oil pipeline was the first one in the history of mankind.