Doubling the Brazilian pipeline web
Transpetro’s natural gas director, Marcelo Rennó, has a daunting assignment in the coming three years: he must more than double Brazil’s network of onshore gas pipelines. This tremendous effort requires him to focus on finding the best technology and making risks as manageable as possible, while ensuring that Transpetro is a good corporate citizen in relation to the local public.
Transpetro is responsible for the management, operation and maintenance of 10,000 kilometres of pipeline in Brazil. During the next three years, Transpetro will add an additional 4,000 new km reserved for gas products. This will more than double the existing 3,000 km currently reserved for Transpetro to operate.
Including the liquid pipelines, Transpetro will be responsible for more than 15,000 km of pipeline in 2010. A significant number of kilometres will also be built to transport ethanol, the alternative fuel powering most of Brazil’s automotive industry. The total Brazilian network will be about 20,000 km.
Centralised control
To Mr Rennó, controlling the risk through-out the distribution chain is the chief concern; “Transpetro is working hard to minimise the risk of leakage to zero. Therefore, we can’t look into the future without improving the quality of the materials, safety levels, construction aspects, inspections, inspection tools, leakage control systems and maintenance, as well as adding to the software and system automation,” he says.
2000 stands out as a bad year for pipeline transportation in Brazil, as the country experienced two major leaks. Mr Rennó remembers it well. “Since then, we have also invested USD 1 billion in an integrity system to discover potential leaks and benchmark the transportation,” he points out.
“All operations are today managed from the national control centre in Rio. From here, we oversee the safety and ‘the big picture’ of all the operations simultaneously. Also, we can perform simulations of changes before they go live. At this centre, we also share all the integrity analyses and activities between the oil and gas transportations. This is very important to us,” he emphasises.
Capacity and integrity challenges
“Our biggest challenge towards 2010 will be to install the pipelines in chronological order and on time. We have a generous development budget, but a bottleneck may arise because there is an enormous number of oil and gas developments around the world, so supplier capacity is limited. This concerns all facets of our mission, from vessels to pipeline production,” says Mr Rennó.
Another challenge is the onshore pipeline construction. According to Mr Rennó, offshore pipeline technology has progressed rapidly over the past 30 years.
“However, as regards onshore developments, progress has suffered. The onshore pipeline business must be improved with new equipment, new construction methods, and safer, faster methods of expediting construction work. I am glad that the industry has started to face these challenges,” he says.
Liquefied gas on the rise
“Today, Brazil is not able to import liquefied natural gas (LNG). But in the near future this will become a reality, and there will be two import plants, one in the Rio area and one near Fortaleza. With these installations, Brazil can import 20 million m3 per day. So in 2010, when we have the extended natural gas network, we will be able to link LNG and the imported gas from Bolivia with domestic gas from the south-east and north-east regions of Brazil,” he explains.
Despite his optimism, Marcelo Rennó is already anticipating the potential safety issues: “LNG has the best track record and history for accidents. It is one of the safest industries in the world. It is very important to know how to perform risk assessments of these operations, and of course we will carry out risk analyses involving environmental and safety aspects. The industry is very conservative about safety. We need to talk, show and prove that everything we are going to install has had a risk assessment with methodology performed on it, and that we safeguard and install the plant in accordance with international standards. We will arrange public hearings and all the necessary steps for safeguarding the operation.”
Socially responsible pipelines
Last year, Petrobras and Transpetro won an acclaimed award for its ‘Family Agriculture in Pipeline Rights-of-Way’ project. This is an innovative initiative to plant community vegetable gardens alongside pipelines; it has already started in the municipalities of Nova Iguacu and Duque de Caxias in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
“It is very important for us as a transportation company to have good relations with the local community where the pipelines are built. This is why we established this self-sustainable project to generate income. It also promotes the rational and monitored use of land along the pipelines by means of planned and safe occupation. In this manner, the areas alongside the pipelines are protected by the local communities, which now actually become our partners in monitoring the area while simultaneously preventing undesirable, unorganised and irregular occupation,” says Mr Rennó.
The pilot project will soon involve 100 low-income families and includes agricultural training, which is essential, especially considering that some of the participants have never worked on the land before. Transpetro also supplies individual protective equipment, such as boots, gloves, hats, raincoats, trousers and long-sleeved shirts.
“This project will become a model for other pipeline areas in Brazil. We see it as a very important effort, not least because we have a venue in which to communicate with the local communities. Their involvement is vital for the expansion of new pipeline areas. On the other hand, we prove that our concern for social welfare involves not only words and promises but also actions,” concludes Mr Rennó.