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Track: Pipelines
Fred Darland
ARCO Pipe Line Company
5900 Cherry Ave
Long Beach, CA 90805
Telephone: 310-590-4644
Fax: 310-983-3324
E-mail: ztcfsd@is.arco.com
Guerrilla GIS-Small Projects, Big Returns: Using GIS for Pipeline Business Development
Pipeline GIS projects conjure up visions of big budgets, elegant solutions, and vague returns. One factor contributing to this vision is that gathering and/or collecting data for a pipeline GIS can cost $1,000 a mile or more. However, we can create single-purpose GIS projects for relatively little cost. "Pipe Detective" is such a project, and it has returned $1,000,000 on a $50,000 investment. Pipeline companies generate revenue by moving material from point A to point B. Once marketing identifies a new revenue opportunity, the planner determines if a pipeline route exists to take advantage of the opportunity. If not, are competitors' pipelines available for lease or purchase? Can we construct a new connection between existing pipelines? The planner answers these questions with an intimate knowledge of his system's lines, subscriptions to trade journals, and bartered information about other companies' pipelines. ARCO Pipe Line Company, along with M.J. Harden and Associates, developed a Visual
Basic/MapObjects GIS application to assist with this planning process. Pipe Detective contains every pipeline route and petroleum-related facility (marine terminals, tank farms, refineries, truck racks) in the Los Angeles basin. Integrated into the system are satellite and aerial photos, highway and road data, street and address data, pipeline specifications and status, and facility details. Using Pipe Detective the planner can query for a specific pipeline and facility configuration. If a new connection is required, the program provides tools to search for any pipelines within a given radius and to measure the proposed connection. Pipe Detective has already returned over twenty times its initial cost.
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