| Show gilsonite company co affy reams of new 2 million the first pipeline ever built to transport solid materials over mountainous country has gone into operation running from the mines to the Afner american ican gilsonite company at bonanza utah the pipeline extends 72 miles over the towering book cliff mountains to the com pany s new refinery scheduled for completion this spring at GUs onite colorado near grand this is the first privately fi fl danced refinery in the united states to produce on a large scale wale conventional petroleum products from solid hydrocarbons gilsonite a trade marked name Is the mineral raw material used it Is mined from vertical seams and is coal like in ap pearn bearance pe arance nee the pipeline will carry a mixture of crushed gilsonite ore and water which will be converted into high grade metallurgical 9 teal coke and gasoline at the new refinery the gasoline will be marketed in the rocky mountain area the coke will be fold sold to aluminum producers produce and other industries for bog and special metallurgical uses uninhabited terrain for virtually all of its itc length the pipeline crosses uninhabited country over some of the most rugged terrain in the west it spans two large canyons via suspension bridges and crosses an foot mountain pass beginning at the companas comp anys mines I 1 in bonanza the 6 inch pipeline will be able to transport tons a day of Gilson gilsonite ltd oro ore the only other available means of transporting this quantity of material to the refinery would be by truck and the pipeline method of transportation will save several dollars per ton over trucking coats costs two suspension bridges one feet long at the white river the other feet long at evacuation wash canyon were built to span man the deepest points of the lines route otherwise the pipeline is burled buried 34 feet below the tr fr for its entire length several factors entered into the decision of the salt lake city company an affiliate of barber oil corporation of new york and standard oil company of california to the pipeline the ideal refinery location considering the availability of a market for the gasoline rail tall facilities cili ties for shipping the coke labor ho housing usini etc was the grand valley of ot colorado trucking the ore from the mine the method presently being used for the companas comp anys other products would be very costly for the large quantities of ore required by the refinery old railroad A railroad had run at one time from the minetto mines to mack colorado but this had long been abandoned and would be too costly to reinstate the present pipeline however does follow the route of this abandoned uintah railroad adequate water is available at the mines from the white river and new hydraulic mining methods introduced by the company yields ore in an al ready prepared slurry form all this indicated the practicability of the project and a test program was instituted to deter mine the engineering data required for the design of the pipeline pipeline tests were conducted by the colorado school of mines research foundation at golden in a 50 foot closed loop of full sized pipe pumping tests were conducted by the wilson snyder manufacturing company a at t braddock penna here various pistons valves vals seats etc were tested with the OUs flurr slurry this test program took six months and confirmed preliminary evaluations of the project one of the major factors found in establishing the pipeline design was the particle clo oct sze ol 01 the gilsonite in the feed slurry at the mine end although the pumps could handle particles of a IA inch size results were drastically improved with an 8 mesh size this smaller particle size also decreases degradation or breaking down of the particles as they travel through the pipeline it also makes de watering easier and makes it easier to maintain a suspension through the line hence the gilsonite pipeline is designed to handle 8 mesh particles Ingli inglieri esi point POW the entire pipeline is laid at a reasonably flat dope slope except for two miles past the summit of baxter POM pan the highest point where 21 degree dopes slopes were necess euary arya initially solids corr con of 38 ite IIA os 65 pet percent nt water wilt wm be ent ft th C afif uniform lurry slurry c avabe wa 5 be by two gallon nua bar beld under v A method of de bif pipe wall troylon bouts was dev teeby CaH fenu riU corporation 0 ri a subsidiary of standard oil oil company of 0 calif A email small section ot of radioactive pipe was placed in the test loop and careful measurements of the minute amounts of radioactive iron W worn om away could be made after only a few hours of operation gilsonite la ls very friable and will not abrade steel surfaces it Is 1 completely insoluble in water and naturally free of impurities A chemical corrosion inhibitor will be used since the solids apparently patently ly scour away any natural protective coatings that are formed on the pipe wall the pipeline is designed for continuous flow and will be shut down only after all the slurry is flushed from the system three electric driven slurry pumps are at the bonanza pump station two are normally used and one is a spare if power should fall a diesel driven pump will be cut into the line and hush flush the system with water this pump usually provides high pressure water tor for ore cutting in the mines A final measure of protection Is the foot high reservoir at it the summit of baxter pass this reservoir can flush the system in both directions there is also a high pressure pump at the refinery refiner that can back flush the line no buildup build up these precautionary measures were all easy to provide and mean ean extra insurance against plugging of the line in fact the pilot tests showed that so long as adequate velocities were maintained slurry could be continuously circulated without buildup build up of solids the pumps are horsepower reciprocal reciprocating pumps the pumping rate ii is gallons per minute and discharge pressure is 2370 poun pounds d s per square inch the pipeline was designed by the engineering department of standard oil company of california the de watering operation at the gilsonite colorado 01 end was worked out by standard oil company of Cali fornias engineering department with alien allen and garcia of chicago and engineers of american gilsonite company american gilsonite company also mines and sells gilsonite GUc onite ore for use in asphalt aspli alt tile paints varnishes inks building and insulation materials it also markets GUs specially six ed selected and blended gilson ites used extensively throughout the world to insulate underground hot pipes |
