The Study of Electrical Energy Consumption in Cascaded Pumps for Pipeline Operations

Abstract

Pumps are critical infrastructure in the Oil and Gas industry, and have been widely used in pipeline transportations of petroleum products. The electrical energy needed by a pump to meet the minimum pipeline operational requirement plays an important role in the overall cost and evaluation of pumping systems performance, which has become an important issue in pump energy management and pump station designs. This paper provides a quantitative and analytical method using Bernoulli’s equation for studying energy dependence between two pumps (Booster and Mainline pumps) in series within a pump station as a function of pump’s head, flow-rate, and density. Using actual parameters from a pump station, the derived equations are validated on four different products. The densities of products are 1000 kg/cm3, 835 kg/cm3, 800 kg/cm3 and 660 kg/cm3 for Water, Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK), and Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) respectively. The results show that the energy requirement of the Booster pump is determined by the energy demand of the Mainline pump as a function of flowrate, density and pump’s head. The study is essential for developing energy saving strategy in pipeline operations and in electrical consideration when selecting the right electric motors for pumps in pump station design.