Transportation Deployment Casebook/2025/Chinese Pipeline Transport

Qualitative Analysis

Pipeline transport is an efficient, economical and safe mode of transport primarily employed for the long-distance conveyance of liquid and gaseous products. It is regarded as one of the five major modes of transport on a global scale, alongside air, rail, road and water transport.

Advantages

Pipeline transport has numerous advantages, including its substantial capacity, uninterrupted operation, rapid speed, affordability, safety, reliability, stability, minimal investment, compactness and low cost, and high automation.

Disadvantage

The pipeline network has restrictions on what they can transport. It is less flexible than road transport because it is difficult to expand or adjust. It requires a large investment to ensure continuous transmission, increasing construction costs. It also requires a large number of intermediate and pressurisation stations. Pipeline transport is mainly operated independently by specific companies with strong monopolies that are not open to the public.

Types

Pipeline transport can be categorised according to the commodities they transport and the type of fluid flow: Water and sewer lines, oil pipelines, gas pipelines, slurry pipelines, pneumatic pipelines, and capsule pipelines. Gas pipelines, Slurry pipelines, Pneumatic pipelines and Capsule pipelines.

Main equipment for Oil pipelines and Gas pipelines

Pipelines are used worldwide in the energy industry, particularly for the long-distance transport of oil and gas.

Main equipment for Oil pipelines

Centrifugal pumps, pumping stations, crude oil heaters, storage tanks, pipeline network systems, pigging equipment, and metering and standardisation devices.

Main equipment for Gas pipelines

Gas gathering facilities, gas compressor stations, trunkline transmission, and urban distribution systems.

History

Before the invention of pipeline transport

Before the invention of pipeline transport, wooden barrels and animal-drawn carts （wagons or donkey carts） were the main means of transporting extracted crude oil to railway stations. In the United States, modified whiskey barrels were used to hold crude oil for transport.

Origin of pipeline transport

Modern pipeline transport began in the mid-19th century when, in October 1865, American S.V. Sickle welded a 9,756-metre-long pipeline using 50-mm-diameter,4.6-metre-long cooked iron pipes to transport crude oil from Pit Hall, Pennsylvania, to the railway station in the Miller Oil District. Between 1880 and 1893, larger pipelines began to appear, with 100mm diameter crude oil, refined products and natural gas pipelines coming into service. This period is regarded as the nascent stage of pipeline transport. However, there are still many problems regarding pipe quality, pipeline connection technology, pressurisation equipment and construction machinery, which need further improvement and perfection.

History and policy in China

In 1958, China's first long-distance crude oil pipeline （the pipeline from the Karamay oilfield to the Dushanzi refinery） was completed, which marked the end of China's history of having no long-distance pipelines, even though the total mileage was only 200 kilometres. In 1963, China's first natural gas pipeline was completed in Bayu, Sichuan Province, with a length of 55 kilometres and a diameter of 426 millimetres. In 1977, China's first long-distance oil pipeline, the Gera pipeline, was completed, with a length of 1,080 kilometres and a diameter of 159 millimetres. In 1985, China's first underwater oil pipeline, the Chengbei oil field underwater oil and gas landing pipeline in the Bohai Sea, was completed, with a length of 1.6 kilometres, an internal diameter of 152.4 millimetres and an external diameter of 304.8 millimetres.

Chinese policy support for pipeline transportation mainly includes national strategic support, industry regulation, financial support, technological innovation and green development. The government has incorporated pipeline transportation into the national energy security strategy and proposed it in the 14th Five-Year Plan. The 2035 Vision is to accelerate the construction of natural gas trunk pipelines and build a nationwide oil and gas interconnection network to enhance the ability to guarantee energy supply. In addition, the establishment of the National Pipeline Network Group (NPNG) has further promoted the unified management of pipeline transportation facilities, realised the goal of a nationwide network, improved market fairness, avoided local monopolies and promoted the opening up of the energy market. At the same time, the government has increased financial support to promote the localisation of high-quality pipes and core equipment and promoted the development of intelligent pipelines, storage and transport optimisation, and new energy transmission technologies through the National Key R&D Plan to promote the development of the pipeline transportation industry in the direction of digitalisation and intelligence. Guided by the "dual carbon" goal, the policy encourages the greening of pipeline transportation, promotes the development of new energy transmission technologies such as hydrogen and carbon dioxide sequestration and storage （CCUS）, and builds a smart pipeline network using the Internet of Things （IoT）, big data and artificial intelligence technologies to improve the operational efficiency and safety of the pipeline system. Implementing these policies has accelerated the modernisation of China's pipeline transportation infrastructure and enhanced the industry's competitiveness, ensuring the safe, stable and sustainable development of energy transportation.

Technological innovation

Pipeline materials and connection technology

In 1895, high-quality steel pipes were put into production, which improved the durability and pressure-carrying capacity of the pipeline; in 1911, acetylene welding was first adopted to connect steel pipes for the gas transmission pipeline, which improved the sealing and stability of the pipeline; in 1928, arc welding replaced acetylene welding, and at the same time, seamless and high-strength steel pipes were born, which marked that the quality of the pipe materials and the connection technology had been matured, and laid the foundation for the reliability of the pipeline transportation in the following years.

Evolution of pressurisation equipment

Initially, oil and gas pipeline booster equipment relied on the steam drive, but with the emergence of the internal combustion engine in the 1890s, the steam engine was gradually replaced. In 1920, high-speed centrifugal pumps began to use electric motors to drive directly, further improving pipeline transportation efficiency and stability. In 1949, the pipeline compressor entered the era of gas turbine drive, and since then, diesel engines, gas turbines and electric motors, due to their respective advantages, have been in the pipeline transportation system for a long time and in the pipeline transportation system. Since then, diesel engines, gas turbines and electric motors have coexisted and played important roles in pipeline transport systems for a long time due to their respective advantages.

Quantitative Analysis

Data source

Chinese Pipeline data

This chart shows the change in the total mileage of pipeline transport in China since 1958. Chinese pipeline length data is from CEIC data. According to the CEIC website, CEIC data is from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, NBS.

Model Formulation

The logistic function used for pipeline transport modelling is given by: $S(t)={\frac {S_{\max }}{1+e^{-b(t-t_{0})}}}$

Where:

• S(t) is the total pipeline length at year t.
• t is the time variable, representing the year.
• t₀ is the inflection point, representing the year when the pipeline length reaches 50% of S_max.
• S_max is the saturation pipeline length.
• b is a coefficient to be estimated.

A single variable linear regression

$Y=bX+c$

$Y=\ln \left({\frac {\text{Pipeline Length}}{S_{\max }-{\text{Pipeline Length}}}}\right)$

$X={\text{Year}}$

The coefficients b and c can be obtained from the regression calculation.

Grid Search for S_max

The total mileage of pipeline transportation in China is increasing yearly, and there is no clear "saturation" trend. This means that it is not possible to determine the final upper limit S_max using the data already available.

To find the K Value（also known as Smax), it is necessary to use Grid Search and Linear Regression to find the optimal value. The first step is to set the search range of K between 1 and 3 times the current maximum value. Then, calculate a regression for different values of K and calculate the R² value to see how well it fits. Choose the K that gives the highest R² value as the final estimate. The graph shows the relationship between the value of K and R². The optimal parameters obtained from the regression analysis for the three-parameter logistic function are summarised in the following table:

Optimal Parameters for Pipeline Growth Model

Parameter	Value
K	164,147.7 km
R2	0.9596
t0	2009.9

Summary

Life Cycle for the Chinese Pipeline Transport

The figure below compares the predicted length of the pipeline with the actual length of the pipeline.

Growth Rate

Birthing Phase （1958-2000）

The annual growth rate of pipeline length during this period was low and less volatile, with no clear acceleration trend.

Growth Phase （2000-2023）

The growth rate graph shows that the annual growth rate increased significantly after 2000. This indicates that pipeline construction has entered the Growth Phase.

Maturity Phase and Decline Phase

Since the beginning of the growth phase in 2000, the annual growth rate of pipeline length has increased significantly. Despite fluctuations in recent years, the rate has remained high. Consequently, from a growth rate perspective, pipeline transport in China is still in a Growth Phase rather than a Maturity and Decline Phase.

Model accuracy

Model accuracy

In terms of various aspects such as goodness of fit, error, statistical significance, and confidence intervals, the model accurately describes the growth trend of China's pipeline transport and can predict the future pipeline development trend.