FIRST OIL PIPE LINE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 55, 8 March 1929, Page 15

FIRST OIL PIPE LINE

FIFTY YEARS -IN USE

Fifty years' of successful operation of the first pipo line ever laid in tho United States was celebrated recently at Bayonuo, New Jersey, and at Bradford, Pennsylvania, the most important termini of tho lino through which moro than 155,000,000 barrels of crudo oil have- beoii punned reports tho "Christian Science Monitor." .

Ridiculed when the first pipe lino was proposed a half-century ago, the organisers of tho Tide Water Pipe Company, Ltd., decided that only by such a, connection from the oil fields to tidewater could the vast flow of tho Pennsylvania wells bo handled, and tho six-inch pipe line crossing tho Alleghanies was laid. At that timo . tho chief use of oil was for keroseno lamps, but. tho invention of the internal combusion engine matlo tlio oil industry one of the important factors in world trade. Thus the oil that has passed through tho pipe linos from tho Pennsylvania and tho mid-Continent fields has been distributed to all parts of tho world.

A total of 1241 miles of lino arc now operated by tho company, with its sixinch lino running from Stoy, 111., to Bayonue, on tho west sido of New York- harbour, a distance of 833 miles, and a line from Rixford, Pa., to Bayonnc, augmented:by a four-inch pipe line in Oklahoma.

The founders of the pipe line were faced with the necessity of carrying their line over the mountains to reach tidewater, and despite tlio scepticism expressed at that .timo, they established pumping stations ;it strategic points along the route. These provide tho impetus to force tho oil uphill, over tho crest of the Alleghanies, and along tho level country on either sido of the mountains. The pumping is done by: Diesel engines, and engineers intimate that an investment of 15,000,000 dollars has been made in this form of equipment alono in tho past 15 years in order that the oil may ilow swiftly to seaboard.

The pipe lino industry in the United States, after half a cqntry of intensivo development, now represents a total mileago of 85,000 miles of trunk and gathering pipe lilies, through ' which 2,000,000 barrels of oil move daily. About 800,000,000 dollars is invested in this industry.

Supplementing the pipo lines are extensive telegraph systems, one of the : major purposes of which is to report leaks in the line so that flow of oil may be shut off immediately a leak develops. Records are kept of the amount of oil pumped into tho line, and from other stations along the route similar records indicate the number of barrels received, theSo reports of oil dispatched and received affording a check which automatically detects a leak should one develop at any point en route.