Description of the Project

Presence of important quantities of heavy crude oil had been confirmed more than 15 years ago, in the area of Rubiales, located at 220 kilometers in the South east of Cusiana field, in the plain area of the “Llanos Orientales”. In order to convey these products towards the Colombian pipeline network, Pacific-Rubiales and ECOPETROL have decided to build a 235 kilometers pipeline, linking the new pumping station of Rubiales (Meta department) to the existing Ecopetrol facilities of Monterrey (Casanare department), from which the crude oil will be delivered to the inner part of the country.

Work done and added value of our solution

In addition to the 235 kilometers Ø 24″ pipeline, the project included:

• the installation of 8 block valves, 6 check valves,
• the pipeline design, Design procurement and installation of the cathodic protection system.
• Design and construction of the geotechnical works and design and construction of the bunkers for valves.
• Construction of 4 major HDD crossings (Meta, Manaucacias, Planas and Yucao rivers) and 3 large open-cut riiver crossings.

Although the construction started in November 2008 and had to be completed by September 2009, the main concern was the rainy weather that would leave a very narrow window for constructing in a 4 months dry season between December and March. Mostly the entire pipe alignment follows a flat zone except for the last 30 Km. The low flat zone in the rainy season normally floods, impairing the normal construction of the pipeline.

Due to large amount of flooding areas, concrete saddles and concrete coated pipe had to be produced in large quantities and in a very short time Schedule.

 

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