Anglesey Pipeline Project

The paper briefly describes a major project, recently completed by Shell UK Oil, comprising a single-buoy mooring facility, with storage and pumping installations at Amlwch on the north coast of Anglesey with a 127 km-long connecting pipeline to feed crude oil to its Stanlow refinery on Merseyside. The power installations are briefly described, together with other environmental aspects which influenced the design. These included the installation of pumps and motors ranging in size from 500 kW to 3280 kW, so that they did not exceed a permitted noise level of 29 dBA under full-load conditions; designing a lighting scheme which would not draw undue attention at night to a large storage and pumping complex which by day is well camouflaged by the geography of the land; providing adequate earthing at installations built on rock and ensuring the correct functioning of control equipment on a network subject to frequent lightning storms. The ways in which these and other problems were overcome are described.