Auckland Airport fuel supply obliterated by digger

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#1867953 18-Sep-2017 11:31

sbiddle:

Batman:

In New Zealand, the mentality is "it's never happened before, why are you worried?".

It's never happened before, she'll be right.

Even if it's happened once, they call it a 1 in a 100 (or other number) year event, and so she'll also be right.

There is nobody even in the industry calling for another pipeline.

There is always those who jump up and down saying "I told you so" every time something happens. Sure it would have been looked at but deemed viable probably not. The Titanic sunk.

Who cares, It has happened, We have no redundancy. Oohhhh but I told you so!
Hindsight is the best sight for the second time today.

Lets start the Geekzone Fuel Cooperative initiative. We all go get 750L tankers to tow behind our vehicles and start transporting fuel! Other than that we are all a bunch of critical spectators.

sbiddle

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#1867955 18-Sep-2017 11:37

For those that want an insight the report on RAP makes good reading http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/energy-security/oil-security/documents-library/RAP%20Contingency%20Options.pdf

The industry regarded duplicating Wiri as far more important than duplicating the pipeline.

tdgeek

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#1867972 18-Sep-2017 11:46

JA has chimed on, quite poor form I feel. Lets use hindsight to bag National.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/96945811/labour-says-national-has-let-down-auckland-over-fuel-vulnerability

frankv

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#1867978 18-Sep-2017 12:01

I wonder how much of each type of fuel is currently at Wiri?

[Edit] After a bit more reading, it seems that the average supply is about 8 days of each type of fuel. The fact that they were pumping jet fuel at the time of the leak suggests that petrol and diesel supplies ought to be a bit better than 8 days? Depending on whether leak happened soon after the switch to jet fuel or just before the switch to something else, the reserve of that could be quite small to over 8 days. Given the hoohah, I guess it must be quite small.

Oblivian

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#1867983 18-Sep-2017 12:06

Following the a380 last night we had a Melbourne bound virgin also top up.

As of today, EK449 is going via Melbourne to maximize loading.

And it's possibly a government mandate to stop our stores running low also.

ResponseMediaNZ

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#1868014 18-Sep-2017 13:02

https://www.facebook.com/refiningnz/posts/1109527625849427

Update from Refining NZ

Hi everyone

Here’s a summary of progress with the recovery and repair on the pipeline leak.

Most of the jet fuel from the leak on the rural location at Ruakaka has been removed. Most of the fuel had leaked into a culvert on the property. This was contained via a series of dams from which the jet fuel has now been recovered.

Environmental staff from the Northland Regional Council have been at the leak site. They confirmed that the leak has been contained, and that the jet fuel has not moved into other waterways. Our team at the leak site is removing contaminated soil from around the damaged section of the pipeline. Heavily contaminated soil is being transported to the refinery for remediation, lightly contaminated soil will be transported to a secure landfill.

Excavation around the pipeline to reveal the damaged section, has been completed. Close inspection shows clear signs of the pipe being damaged and the protective coating removed by heavy equipment. This section of pipe is located in boggy terrain and our team is certain that the acidic nature of the soil will have contributed to deterioration and the subsequent tear in the pipe. Further expert analysis of the metal is being carried out. However, we are arriving at the conclusion that this incident is a ‘one-off’. Our team at the leak site is now making preparations to remove the 2.3m section of damaged pipe and insert a new section of pipe.

We are now working to a definite time-plan for repairing the pipe, returning the pipeline to service and getting jet fuel delivered into Wiri. We are expecting to deliver jet fuel into Wiri between midday Sunday the 24th and midday Tuesday the 26th. From that point we estimate it will take another 30 hours for the jet fuel to settle, for recertification to be obtained, and to transport to the airport for final use.

We have had some questions about whether the pipeline route is marked. As you would expect, it is. There are signs on fences along its route to indicate exactly where the pipe is and what it is.

We have also been asked why the repair will take many days. We need to be absolutely clear that it is safe to work in before we can start welding in the new section of pipe. The second point is that the work site is in a boggy, peaty area, made even more challenging to work in by the recent heavy rains. Rest assured that we are working as quickly as humanly possible to fix the pipe in order to minimise the disruption we are so painfully conscious of.

Our thanks go to the team doing sterling work in this challenging environment, and to our local community for their patience and support.

Finally, our apologies go to each and every one of you impacted by this event. We understand the disruption it has caused and we are doing everything we can to repair this rupture. ^PH
--

afe66

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#1868051 18-Sep-2017 14:13

tdgeek:
JA has chimed on, quite poor form I feel. Lets use hindsight to bag National.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/96945811/labour-says-national-has-let-down-auckland-over-fuel-vulnerability

Well if you want to bring politics into it...

Was interesting to hear Paula Bennet on national radio this morning prevaricate about what that report said about the risk to fuel safety. She was too busy to read it but the reporter said well he had read it...

If you are going on national radio to talk about fuel leaking and hadn't read that report which specifically discussed that risk wasn't a good look either.

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wellygary

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#1868081 18-Sep-2017 14:54

tdgeek:

JA has chimed on, quite poor form I feel. Lets use hindsight to bag National.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/96945811/labour-says-national-has-let-down-auckland-over-fuel-vulnerability

This is not a new risk,

Covec, Hale and Twomey raised similar points in a 2005 report to MED,

"The 2005 study found the risk of failure in individual components of the New Zealand oil supply system to be exceptionally low, but there are potential vulnerabilities – a single refinery handling the majority of the country’s product, a single pipeline supplying the largest city, a coastal distribution system comprising two ships, storage infrastructure with limited headroom that already involves oil wholesalers sharing capacity and product on a mutual exchange basis."

Cited in NZIER 2012

http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/energy-security/oil-security/documents-library/NZ%20Oil%20Security%20Assessment%20Update.pdf

Similar claims about the risk of single pipelines were made in 2011 after the Maui pipeline was damaged, but no one has gone out and dug a second gas pipe to Auckland,

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/5847393/Gas-supply-line-closed-industry-disrupted

tdgeek

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#1868089 18-Sep-2017 15:08

wellygary:

tdgeek:

JA has chimed on, quite poor form I feel. Lets use hindsight to bag National.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/96945811/labour-says-national-has-let-down-auckland-over-fuel-vulnerability

This is not a new risk,

Covec, Hale and Twomey raised similar points in a 2005 report to MED,

"The 2005 study found the risk of failure in individual components of the New Zealand oil supply system to be exceptionally low, but there are potential vulnerabilities – a single refinery handling the majority of the country’s product, a single pipeline supplying the largest city, a coastal distribution system comprising two ships, storage infrastructure with limited headroom that already involves oil wholesalers sharing capacity and product on a mutual exchange basis."

Cited in NZIER 2012

http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/energy-security/oil-security/documents-library/NZ%20Oil%20Security%20Assessment%20Update.pdf

Similar claims about the risk of single pipelines were made in 2011 after the Maui pipeline was damaged, but no one has gone out and dug a second gas pipe to Auckland,

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/5847393/Gas-supply-line-closed-industry-disrupted

Ok.

Maui has been open since 1979, so thats over 30 years before that leak. Similar to the RAP. It comes down do we pay for dual pipelines over seperate land masses to safeguard a once in 30+ year event? Who pays? The gas users and petrol/diesel/AVGas users ? Or could plans be put in place to hold more local stocks?

How much are these pipelines to build, given that its duplicating what's there now, and over new land masses and property purchases?

MadEngineer

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#1868096 18-Sep-2017 15:29

Fred99:
As I understand it, they run a "pig" (like a piston) down the line when changing the fuel product they're pumping - to separate the fluids (the pipe alone contains several million liters of product, it can carry different fuel in different sections of the line at one time. IIRC the pipe was commissioned in the 1980s. Fixing it is probably a bit more complex than just bunging any old replacement bit of pipe in place - hopefully they'll have some "spare" original spec pipe at hand. If tankers (boats) deliver fuel in the meantime - until they get the pipe sorted - then those tankers have to come via the Manukau - not Auckland.

A single full fuel load for an Airbus A380 is several hundred thousand litres - probably something like 8 articulated road tankers. That makes it quite a logistic exercise.

I'm told that pig is used for cleaning. Sensors route the different fuel runs accordingly. Fuel that inevitably is a mixture is called shunt fuel which is captured and sold mixed into other fuels at cheaper rates.

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

Fred99

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#1868099 18-Sep-2017 15:34

Does NZ Refining use the presence of the pipeline and infrastructure (Wiri Terminal) to lock out competition?

This was put together as part of the Muldoon/Bill Birch National Party "Think Big" projects - where state ownership of production was considered to be the answer, exposing that to commercial competition actively discouraged,

I wonder how many airports of similar and larger size elsewhere in the world are effectively locked in to one supplier, and supplied over a pipeline from a single refinery the distance that Marsden Point is from the airport.

Coil

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#1868103 18-Sep-2017 15:38

Fred99:

Does NZ Refining use the presence of the pipeline and infrastructure (Wiri Terminal) to lock out competition?

This was put together as part of the Muldoon/Bill Birch National Party "Think Big" projects - where state ownership of production was considered to be the answer, exposing that to commercial competition actively discouraged,

I wonder how many airports of similar and larger size elsewhere in the world are effectively locked in to one supplier, and supplied over a pipeline from a single refinery the distance that Marsden Point is from the airport.

We sorta don't have much of an option. Unless you are willing to open a port waikato refinery?
Also appears our much larger neighbor has the same issue.

http://bara.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/A-Competitive-Supply-of-Jet-Fuel-at-Australias-Major-International-Airports-December-2014.pdf

MikeB4

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#1868104 18-Sep-2017 15:39

Fred99:

Does NZ Refining use the presence of the pipeline and infrastructure (Wiri Terminal) to lock out competition?

This was put together as part of the Muldoon/Bill Birch National Party "Think Big" projects - where state ownership of production was considered to be the answer, exposing that to commercial competition actively discouraged,

I wonder how many airports of similar and larger size elsewhere in the world are effectively locked in to one supplier, and supplied over a pipeline from a single refinery the distance that Marsden Point is from the airport.

I thought the Refinery was built in the 60's under the Nash Government. It was expanded after the 70's oil shock.

Fred99

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#1868124 18-Sep-2017 15:44

MadEngineer:
Fred99:

As I understand it, they run a "pig" (like a piston) down the line when changing the fuel product they're pumping - to separate the fluids (the pipe alone contains several million liters of product, it can carry different fuel in different sections of the line at one time. IIRC the pipe was commissioned in the 1980s. Fixing it is probably a bit more complex than just bunging any old replacement bit of pipe in place - hopefully they'll have some "spare" original spec pipe at hand. If tankers (boats) deliver fuel in the meantime - until they get the pipe sorted - then those tankers have to come via the Manukau - not Auckland.

A single full fuel load for an Airbus A380 is several hundred thousand litres - probably something like 8 articulated road tankers. That makes it quite a logistic exercise.

I'm told that pig is used for cleaning. Sensors route the different fuel runs accordingly. Fuel that inevitably is a mixture is called shunt fuel which is captured and sold mixed into other fuels at cheaper rates.

Yes - they probably pig the pipe for cleaning, but I think you'll find that they probably run two pigs specifically for product separation fairly close together, the contaminated "shunt fuel" is probably what's between the two pigs, presumably will be mainly the "following" product.

25cm ID pipe (10"?) x 170km, actually about 8 million litres in the pipe - take about 24 hours to pump from one end to the other.

They'll have sensors/transducers sending pig location - probably an anomaly in that (as well as their comment about pressure loss) gave them clues as to the leak location.

Fred99

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#1868127 18-Sep-2017 15:46

MikeB4:

Fred99:

Does NZ Refining use the presence of the pipeline and infrastructure (Wiri Terminal) to lock out competition?

This was put together as part of the Muldoon/Bill Birch National Party "Think Big" projects - where state ownership of production was considered to be the answer, exposing that to commercial competition actively discouraged,

I wonder how many airports of similar and larger size elsewhere in the world are effectively locked in to one supplier, and supplied over a pipeline from a single refinery the distance that Marsden Point is from the airport.

I thought the Refinery was built in the 60's under the Nash Government. It was expanded after the 70's oil shock.

The original refinery was, but I think the refinery expansion, pipeline, Wiri Terminal were '70s design, '80s completion.

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