With support from the association's member companies and the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the AOPL has committed to expanding its current work researching the effects of ethanol blends on the materials of pipelines through a multi-phased program to be conducted under the endorsement and guidance of Pipeline Research Council International Inc.
One part of the three-pronged research project, which the Oil Price Information Service said will cost upward of $700,000 in its entirety, will investigate the possibility of transporting low-level ethanol blends in existing pipelines with no appreciable rework or retrofits done to the existing infrastructure. The AOPL said one key area of this research will monitor the use of E10, E15 and E20 blends to gain a better understanding of the contribution that each blend makes to stress corrosion cracking on pipeline materials. Results of this expedited phase of the study are expected within 12 to 18 months.
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Building on previously conducted work, the AOPL seeks to expand the knowledge base behind the environmental and material/fuel property conditions under which stress corrosion cracking is likely to occur. The AOPL said the focal point of this part of the study will be on the development and implementation of mitigation strategies in lab and field tests. "The project will also evaluate the role of impurities in the fuel and variability of feedstocks," the AOPL said.
A third aspect of the pipeline study will evaluate the use of ethanol blends in existing pipelines and then focus entirely on new pipeline design to thwart issues with material integrity altered by denatured and neat ethanol. Metallurgical factors, welding and post-welding treatments, and elastomer and other non-metallic material selections for pipeline and tank designs will be considered in this portion of the three-phase study.
