A BIG BORE – Pipeline’s route under Neosho River nearing completion

Crews from Laney Directional Drilling, Humble, Texas, are completing a bore under the Neosho River to accommodate the Enbridge Flanagan South Pipeline, which at 36 inches in diameter will carry 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day through Allen County.
The statistics are a little staggering: The bore, with completion expected early next week, will leave a hole 48 inches in diameter and 1,652 feet long. The pipeline,  with its 30.7-foot joints already welded together, then will be pulled under the Neosho, with the tunnel’s lowest point 40 feet under the river’s bed.
The crossing is just north of U.S. 169 south of Humboldt.
“This isn’t the longest bore we’ve had,” said R.J. Wilson, an information officer with Enbridge. The pipeline also was taken under the Missouri and Mississippi rivers in its 600-mile journey from Flanagan, Ill., to Cushing, Okla.
But, that doesn’t disparage the under-river project here, which is in its fourth week.
Initially, a 32-inch pilot hole was bored under the river, with drill pipe joints having as much as 15-degree sway one to another. The machine used to accomplish the first bore, and the current reaming, can exert up to 1 million pounds of pressure.
Much of that capacity was needed at times.
John Gill, Enbridge supervisor for the bore, said a two-foot-thick shelf of limestone — “very hard limestone”— was encountered as the looping bore went from ground level to under the river.
“The (pulling) machine really shook when we were going through the limestone,” Gill said.
Above the rock mantle is alluvium, a thick layer of mainly topsoil on top of gravel that runs from either side of the river, giving ample evidence of centuries of “cut-and-fill” activity as the stream has meandered. Below the limestone is shale.
The project has had Laney workers on task 24 hours a day, six days a week, with about 12 hours of boring each day and another 12 hours of other chores associated with such a project, Gill said.
The Laney crew leans heavily on workers with substantial experience in the exacting work of horizontal directional drilling. Monday afternoon, with all bundled up again wind chills that approached zero, the workers went about their tasks in a choreographed manner.
Once the under-river pipe is in place, it will undergo pressure testing, about half again as much as oil coursing through it ever will exert, and have mud, from the boring process, snuggled in all around. Eventually, when all 600 miles of pipeline are in place, even more strenuous pressure testing will be done.
Wilson noted that special coating of the pipe, to prevent corrosion and other damage, also would be tested with computerized means that would be able to detect a flawed place as small as a dime.
If a flaw is found, detection equipment is sensitive enough to pinpoint the defect.
In addition to testing after the pipe is placed in its trench, joint welds are inspected extensively and when pipe is lowered into the trench — some cut through solid rock in Allen County — the process involves cable wrapped in material to avoid damage. Cushions are placed under the pipe to give it a soft resting place.
Material used to cover the pipe also is placed with care, and once a trench is filled, the ground all around is returned to its previous condition, to the point that topsoil was removed and stored before the trench was cut so it could be put back in place.
Enbridge’s goal, company spokespersons have said on numerous occasions, is make the pipeline route look as much as possible as it did before any ground was disturbed.

A PUMP station about a mile southeast of Humboldt is nearing completion. It will be one of six along the 600-mile line, in place to ensure oil flows at a specific rate.
All pump stations are monitored 24 hours a day from a state-of-the-art control center, and multiple on-site detectors and transmitters are employed so remote shutdown and isolation could quickly occur. Personnel also are on-site during the work day.
Noise from pump station operation is minimal. Typical background noise level in a rural setting, such as near Humboldt, is about 40 decibels at a distance of 300 yards, or the equivalent of the hum of a refrigerator a quarter of a mile away.
Enbridge, in business for 60 years, will ship oil through the pipeline that is produced in Montana, the Dakotas and Canada. Once at Cushing, one of the primary storage depots in the United States, oil will be routed to refineries along the Gulf Coast and elsewhere.

Texas company a major drilling operation
Laney Directional Drilling Co. is a major player in horizontal directional drilling.
The company, based in Humble, Texas, has 12 hydraulic powered drilling rigs, capable of making bores from 4 to 60 inches and crossings of as much as 7,600 feet.
In 2003 Laney introduced the largest directional drilling rig ever manufactured with pull-back capabilities in excess of 1.7 million pounds. Laney approaches projects on a turn-key basis, with all support equipment and mud recovery systems along with transport trucks and trailers.
In addition to domestic work, Laney has completed projects in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, Africa, Spain and South America.