Delivering intelligent, all-weather inspection for oil and gas pipelines

Oil and gas continue to be an indispensable part of the global energy system, but challenges persist in the transport of these vital resources.

In China, oil and gas are mainly produced in the northeast, northwest, and southwest regions, while consumers are largely concentrated in the southeast coastal and south-central regions. The distances between these regions are massive. For long-distance overland transport of oil and gas, transmission pipelines remain the most cost-effective option.

Underground pipelines are commonly used in China, but are harder to inspect than above-ground pipelines. Traditional manual inspections are inadequate for risk prediction and emergency response. Incidents such as construction accidents, tampering, and natural disasters can cause supply interruptions, oil spills, fires, and explosions. This can result in serious environmental damage, economic losses, injury, and death.

So can we create an intelligent 24/7 pipeline inspector to supervise and detect pipeline risks in real time? The latest practice delivered by Huawei and PipeChina Shandong Branch has done exactly that.

Safeguarding pipeline and energy reserves

With one-tenth of China's pipelines, Shandong Province is a nexus of oil and gas transportation. The pipelines managed by PipeChina Shandong Branch run through complex natural environments such as farmland, wetlands, and bodies of water.

The company has partnered with Huawei to create an optical fiber warning system for oil and gas pipelines. The system enhances pipeline security through accurate identification and prevention of incidents such as oil theft and construction accidents, thereby protecting farmland and water resources from potentially disastrous oil spills and gas leaks. Huawei's distributed optical fiber sensing technology is used to intelligently supervise the linearly distributed pipeline areas.

Distributed optical fiber sensing technology functions similarly to the sensory nerves in the human body. When an intrusion occurs in a pipeline, the accompanying optical fiber cables deployed along the pipeline can sense vibrations. Different vibration patterns are quickly analyzed by the optical fiber sensing equipment to identify the event type and promptly issue an alarm, achieving intelligent pipeline supervision and early warning.

The optical fiber warning system has a three-layer end-edge-cloud architecture. The first layer is deployed at pipeline stations and valve rooms to collect raw vibration data from the optical fiber sensors. The second layer is deployed at PipeChina Shandong Branch and uses core algorithms such as waterfall charts and alarm compression models to aggregate and process alarm data. The third layer is deployed at the PipeChina and uses the IMS system to achieve closed-loop alarm management. It also links with video security and drones to form a robust risk prevention system through the coordinated efforts of the three-layer architecture.

The system's algorithm models are optimized to prevent false alarms caused by passing vehicles. At night, the sensitivity of vibration alarms is increased to detect third-party drilling and tampering. False alarms are suppressed to enhance warning accuracy and reduce unnecessary on-site inspections. This significantly improves the pipeline in both efficiency and security.

Launched in December 2023, the optical fiber warning system spans 1,173 kilometers and has accurately identified and prevented more than 100 risks of third-party tampering.

As a major energy artery, oil and gas pipelines have a significant impact on global energy supply, so their security is of critical importance. Facing the major challenge of digitizing oil and gas pipelines, Huawei hopes to collaborate with oil and gas companies to develop more solutions to safeguard pipelines and ensure energy delivery by integrating new ICT such as optical sensing, AI, and big data. When it eventually takes shape, it will be an all-weather intelligent inspector for oil and gas pipelines.