Transneft Druzhba has been underway with its scheduled inspection of underwater crossings for oil trunk pipelines (OTP) and petroleum product pipelines (PPTP).The company says the inspection is being carried out to check the location and elevation of pipeline linear sections that cross the water barriers for compliance with reference documentation.
The work has now been underway at the Ust-Khmelina river in Tambov region. Inspections have been completed at pipeline UW crossings in Iput, Sudost, Desna, Oka, Tsna, Sura, Syzranka, Kadada, Voronezh, Matyra, Chelnovaya, and Don rivers. Also inspected has been the technical condition of the longest underwater crossing (9.7 km long) within the responsibility area of Transneft Druzhba, in the Volga river.
Altogether, Transneft UW Service professionals will inspect 25 underwater crossings at the Kuibyshev – Unecha – Mozyr-1, the Kuibyshev – Unecha-2, the Unecha – Polotsk-2 OTPs, 27 underwater crossings at the Kuibyshev – Bryansk and the Ufa – West Direction PPTPs, and some other ones. The work is being carried out in the scope of the integrated inspection programme of Transneft Druzhba. The scheduled inspection of UW crossings will be completed in December 2017.
Overall, the oil and petroleum product pipelines in the Transneft Druzhba system have 133 UW crossings, 4 of them being integrated. The trunk pipelines in the company’s responsibility area cross more than 30 rivers and lakes, plus 370 minor streams.