High-strength Steel Pipeline Economics

The recent development of X120 (Grade 825) high-strength steel linepipe enables gas producers to realize significant savings in the total cost of long-distance gas transmission pipelines, lowering the cost of supplying gas to market. These savings can be achieved from cost reductions in multiple areas, including material, construction, compression and integrated project operations. This paper describes methods of achieving these savings and presents examples of pipeline project scenarios where application of X120 linepipe in higher-pressure, smaller-diameter pipelines results in total project cost savings of 5% to 15%.