Civil Engineering Expert On Pipeline Safety

Although pipelines are considered the safest and most economical mode of transporting large volumes of petroleum and natural gas products over long distances, at times they do present safety risk when in urban areas. Most major airports in U.S. rely on underground pipelines for delivery of jet fuel. The daily consumption of a busy international airport may be around 5 million gallons-a-day or less. A commercial passenger jetliner requires less than 3,000 gallons of fuel per-hour of flight. Construction equipment may inadvertently dig into an underground high-pressure jet fuel line. Any such incident could cause extensive property damage resulting in airport shut down. Whenever the delivery of jet fuel is interrupted, an estimated 600 trucks twice daily would be required to deliver an equivalent daily volume of jet fuel needed.