Cold Regions Science and Technology 64 (2010) 209–212

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Cold Regions Science and Technology

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / c o l d r e g i o n s

Guest Editorial

Design and construction of a large-diameter crude oil pipeline in Northeastern China:

A special issue on permafrost pipeline
Huijun Jin
State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soils Engineering, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: The design and building of a pipeline in permafrost regions challenge engineers and scientists in many
Crude oil pipeline regards, and the geohazards resulting from the (differential) frost heaving and thaw settlement of the
Modified conventional burial pipeline foundation soils present one of the most daunting tasks. The China–Russia Crude Oil Pipeline, a spur
Warm permafrost line from the Siberia–Pacific Pipeline System, presented unique scientific and engineering problems because
Northeastern China
of: 1) extensive presence of the more ice-rich permafrost in boreal forests and swamps; 2) an insistence on a
Forests and wetlands
Frost hazards and mitigative measures
buried construction mode because of concerns about the potential for frequent forest fires and other safety
issues; 3) great uncertainties in the temperatures of oil being transported although the given estimated oil
temperature of − 6.4 to + 3.6 °C entering the Mo'he Pump Station, and the estimated oil temperatures could
vary from about − 6 to + 10 °C along the southward pipeline route; 4) the limited lead time for detailed
surveys on engineering geology along the pipeline routes and for engineering design; 5) very much limited
investment and a limited number of engineers experienced in designing and building a major pipeline in an
area where about one-half of its length would be impacted by generally warm (− 3 to 0 °C) permafrost.
Nevertheless, the pipeline engineers and permafrost scientists strived to economically build and
satisfactorily operate the first major crude oil pipeline in the boreal ecosystem in China. The major results
on the formation mechanisms and mitigative measures for the (differential) frost heave and thaw settlement
were presented in the eight papers in this special issue on permafrost pipeline, and one additional paper on
the Golmud–Lhasa Oil Products Pipeline on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau was also included. They may provide
insights to the understanding of pipeline–permafrost interactions and benefit the future design and
construction of pipelines in similar northern environments.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction because, although inactive ice wedges were identified at similar

The China–Russia Crude Oil Pipeline (CRCOP) was first proposed as
early as 1994 as a spur line of the Siberia–Pacific Oil Pipeline System to
supply crude oil for China from Siberia, Russia. However, the pipeline
was subjected to many changes of plans and designs, particularly the
stakeholders, pipeline routes, and transportation modes. Among
which, the most significant change involved in the rerouting of the
pipeline more downstream of the Lena River in order to better protect
the sensitive ecological environments in the Baikal Lake regions. As a
result, the CRCOP was also rerouted from its original Hailar to Daqing
route to the final route starting from Skovorodino, Russia, via Mo'he,
China, to Daqing, China (Fig. 1).
Three alternative routes were originally proposed for the CRCOP.
The middle line (Ta'he route) was finally selected. The routing
adopted for the CRCOP correctly traversed the permafrost zones as
expeditiously as possible in a generally north to south direction in
order to minimize the freezing/thawing problems. This was possible
E-mail address: hjjin@lzb.ac.cn.
latitudes in Northeastern China (Yang and Jin, in press), the route
survey and the historical data acquired had reported no near-surface
buried ice wedges or lenses whose thawing might produce significant
differential settlement over short distances and possible rupture of
the pipeline. That problem had forced the Alyeska pipeline to employ
an elevated mode of construction over about 53% of its total length.
The survey also reported areas of ice-rich permafrost whose thawing
and settlement might result in occasionally unacceptable sags and
tension forces in the pipeline, but it would appear that frost heave
could be the main soil foundation problem encountered on the
CRCOP. Tremendous forces are generated when a section of the
pipeline route has an excess of moisture, which freezes more slowly
than the surrounding materials, heaving upwards as the lesser
resisting direction as the balance of the moisture freezes, in spite of
the contravening forces of contraction in the pipeline itself. This route
also is easier to build and traverses lesser extents of natural reserves
for forests, wetlands, rare and endangered species, as well as key
water resources areas along the Nen River for the Songhua and Nen
Rivers Plain. This route is also relatively richer in engineering
geological and permafrost data, and consequently less costly.

0165-232X/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.coldregions.2010.04.016
210 H. Jin / Cold Regions Science and Technology 64 (2010) 209–212
Fig. 1. Alternatives and the finalized route for the CRCOP and the Siberia–Pacific Crude Oil Pipeline System.
The CRCOP route from Skovorodino to Daqing is 1030 km, almost
straight from north to south, in which it is 953 km from Mo'he at the
southern bank of the Heilong–Amur River serving as the China–Russia
border, to Daqing on the northern Songhua–Nen Rivers Plain (Fig. 1).
The pipeline is finalized at 813 mm (32 in.) in diameter and
the designed annual throughput is 15 million tons of crude oil (or
600,000 bpd) at the operation pressure of 8 MPa (occasionally to
10 MPa at certain portions) during the first term in 2010–2030. Most of
the pipeline design and construction adopted a modified conventional
burial at a nominal depth of 1.5 m, and the estimated oil temperatures
at the Mo'he Inlet will be about −6.4 to +3.6 °C, and the estimated
temperatures of oil flows along the CRCOP route during the next
50 years will vary from − 6 to + 10 °C taking into account of abrasion
heating of oil flows along the pipe wall and temperature increase
through pump stations (Li et al., 2010a). The active construction
started on 18 May 2009, and it was designed to be completed in August
2010, and the formal operation is to begin on 1 October 2010.
The northern part of the CRCOP travels 441 km in the regions
affected by the Xing'an–Baikal type of permafrost, which is charac-
terized by largely latitudinal permafrost, better developed permafrost
in the lower elevations such as intermontane basins and lowlands,
strongly influenced by local factors, such as ground surface vegetative
coverage of snow cover, forest and wetlands canopies, and atmo-
spheric temperature inversions (Jin et al., 2007, 2010). The warm
(N−1 °C) permafrost accounts for 275 km, or about 62% of the
permafrost zones along the pipeline route, and the ice-rich, warm
permafrost accounts for 119 km, or about 27% of the permafrost zones
along the pipeline route. The transition zones of isolated patchy and
sporadic permafrost and taliks are as wide as 300 km, and 83
transitions of permafrost and seasonally frozen ground or taliks
were identified. In addition, about 50 km of the pipeline needs to be
buried in wetlands with marginal permafrost, and most of the
pipeline route in permafrost regions is forested. In the south, the
pipeline traverses 512 km of the areas affected by deep (N1.5 m)
seasonally frozen ground in the piedmonts of the Da Xiang'anling
Mountains and on the northern Songhua–Nen Rivers Plain, with rich
fine-grained soils, generally high ground water tables, and frequently
encountered wetlands. The route is subject to both winter and
summer extremes of temperature, high winds and drifted snow,
avalanches, and spring flooding conditions. Therefore, the geohazards
resulting from (differential) frost heave and thaw settlement of the
foundations soils of the pipeline and its associated infrastructures are
very significant, and surveys, design, and construction of the CRCOP
must be detailed in many aspects.
This special issue on the pipelines in permafrost regions includes
eight papers. Jin et al. (2010) mainly assessed frozen-ground
conditions for engineering geology along the CRCOP. It was based
on extensive field investigations and surveys. Li et al. (2010a, 2010b)
and Zhang et al. (2010) presented their thermal analysis on the
interactions between pipeline and frozen ground. The situations along
the pipeline route and during the next 50 years were taken into
account. Wen et al. (2010) and Wu et al. (2010) presented their
strain/stress analysis and the interpretations on the formation and
mitigative mechanisms of (differential) frost heave and thaw
settlement of pipeline foundation soils. Xu et al. (2010) conducted
and analyzed the results of the 1:8 scale model test. Yang et al. (2010)
provided discussions on environmental hazards and contingency
plans and on the mitigative techniques and monitoring and evaluation
systems for thermal and moisture regimes, deformation and stresses
of pipeline foundation soils. Additionally, He and Jin (2010) presented
a paper on the permafrost and cold regions environmental problems
of the Golmud–Lhasa oil product pipeline and their mitigation. Wei
et al. (in press) predicted changes of permafrost during next 50 years
both in Northeastern China and along the pipeline route, but it was
not included in this special issue because of its scopes unfit for the
journal.
2. Assessment and prediction of permafrost conditions for
engineering geology
About 500 boreholes, with depths of 5 to 20 m, were drilled and
cored for analyses along the CRCOP (only the permafrost portion) in
2007–2008, and the frozen-ground conditions were evaluated. On the
basis of comprehensive analysis of available data, an equivalent latitude
 H. Jin / Cold Regions Science and Technology 64 (2010) 209–212
model (ELM) for mean annual ground surface temperatures (MAGST)
was established. Using the finite element method and assuming a
climate warming rate of 0.048 °C/a, the ELM was combined with the
unsteady-state heat conduction model to simulate permafrost tem-
peratures at present, and to predict those during the next 50 years
(PetroChina Daqing Oilfield Engineering Co., Ltd., 2008a, 2008b; Wei,
2008; Jin et al., 2010; Wei et al., 2010). The ELM model was further
improved by taking into account of the influences of topography, snow
cover and vegetation on the MAGSTs, and by incorporating the design
and construction modes of the CRCOP and on the basis of observational
data, and the numerical simulations using the SHAW model. The per-
mafrost conditions for engineering geology were carefully analyzed,
zoned, and evaluated on the basis of present conditions and predicted
changes, particularly the sections for the pipeline crossings under
rivers beyond the depths of anticipated scours and over the existing
engineered infrastructures, and those may experience significant
(differential) frost hazards and freeze–thaw cycles. Then, general and
specific design principles and mitigative measures were proposed and
evaluated using the research results and previous experiences and
lessons learned from Alyeska, Norman Wells, and Russia pipelines. The
zonation, assessment principles and criteria have been applied in the
pipeline design. They have also been used as the scientific bases for the
construction, environmental management, operation and maintenance/
contingency plans (Yang et al., 2010).
3. Pipeline–soil interactions and formation mechanisms of
frost hazards
In these research projects, the pipe–soil interactions in thermal
and mechanical/stress processes, and formation mechanisms for the
frost heaving and thaw settlement under alternating oil temperature
at a range of −6 to +10 °C were studied using the numerical models
on the thermal and mechanical analyses (Li et al., 2010a, 2010b; Wu
et al., 2010; Wen et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2010) and 1:8 scale
laboratory tests (Xu et al., 2010). In the thermal analysis, the research
investigated the distribution of oil flows along the pipeline route and
during the next 50 years of operation, and its controlling or
influencing factors (Li et al., 2010a), and the developing processes
and trends of the frozen and thawed cylinders around the pipeline
along the pipeline and during the next 50 years (Li et al., 2010b). The
depths of freeze–thaw processes were studied and predicted for
pipeline foundation soils of various combinations of ice/moisture
contents and genetic types during the next 50 years (Zhang et al.,
2010). In the stress/strain analysis, the effective stress on the pipe
surface and its changes due to the (differential) frost heaving and
thaw settlement of soils surrounding the pipeline under various
insulation configurations, oil pressures, pipe wall thicknesses, and
lengths of transition zones between the permafrost and taliks/
seasonally frozen ground, and the allowable and yield strains for the
pipeline under (differential) deformations were studied in detail, and
the proper mitigative measures, such as pipe insulation, refilling with
non-frost-susceptible soils, and increase in the pipe wall thickness,
were proposed and adopted (Wen et al., 2010; Wu et al., 2010).
4. Frost hazards mitigation and monitoring–evaluation system for
the CRCOP
The research on the long-term stability of pipeline foundation
soils was conducted, in which the applied engineering measures were
proposed and tested to mitigate the frost hazards and to solve other
more general geotechnical problems in cold regions, such as drainage
and erosion controls, application of geotextiles, slope stabilization
techniques, and re-vegetation methods for the damaged sites due to
the pipeline construction, as well as contingency plans for emergency
response to oil spills (PetroChina Daqing Oilfield Engineering Co., Ltd.,
2008b; Yang et al., 2010). A pre-thawing approach and design
211
principle was proposed and adopted in the marginal permafrost
regions along the pipeline route, in order to proactively mitigate the
frost heave and thaw settlement of pipeline foundation soils in
gradual but significant heat exchange with ambient environments
and under a warming climate (Jin et al., 2010). However, in the
northern part of the pipeline route, permafrost is more ice-rich and
colder (b−1 °C and down to − 3 °C), an approach and principle for
controlling the thawing process of permafrost was proposed and
adopted to ensure the pipeline safety. These work resulted in a
conventional burial construction mode for the pipeline modified to
adapt to the terrain, drainage and soil conditions. It satisfactorily
solved the design issues on the slope stability and crossings of more
ice-rich permafrost zones. These studies also provided guidance for
the design of the long-term monitoring, evaluation and warning
systems for the dynamic changes in thermal and moisture regimes
and strain/stress in the pipeline foundation soils in the permafrost
regions.
5. Hindsight and prospects
In order to solve the permafrost issues challenging the design and
construction of the CRCOP, scientists and engineers from the Chinese
Academy of Sciences and PetroChina formed research teams, and
spent about 5 years to reach technically and economically viable and
environmentally friendly solutions. In these processes, many prudent
scientists and practical engineers from USA, Canada and Russia were
consulted on many regards. For example, Professor Max C Brewer
from USA, Professor Stuart A. Harris and Dr. Jim Oswell from Canada,
and Professor Valetin Kondratiev from Russia have contributed
insightfully to the survey, design and construction of the CRCOP. In
the meantime, many researchers, such as Lachenbruch (1970),
Williams (1986), and Smith and Riseborough (2010), have contrib-
uted indirectly to the pipeline design and construction as the English-
published results on related research are still in shortage, particularly
from Russia, where the pipeline design, construction, and operation in
the vast permafrost regions have been a long history and many
successful stories were told. Although this special issue on the CRCOP
presents background research and anticipated behavior, it may
provide some insights to future pipeline projects or related research.
The results of the geocryological studies on the CRCOP have been
incorporated in the survey, design and construction at all stages,
which significantly contributed to the construction project and its
long-term stability and safety, as well as its environmental friendli-
ness. At the same time, the related permafrost study also has
significantly advanced permafrost research in Northeastern China,
where the similar research has been relatively quiet for almost
20 years in comparison with those on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. More
projects related to highways, railways and airports, as well as for
natural resources development and environmental management and
protection have been proposed and are now in progress. They would
yield more and better understanding of permafrost and cold region
environments and engineering in the boreal forest and wetland zones.
Since the Last Glaciation Maximum (ca. 32 to 12 ka BP), the
permafrost and periglacial environments in Northeastern and
Northern China have experienced major changes, with dramatic
effects on natural and human environments (Jin et al., 2007; Yang and
Jin, in press). In particular, the large-scale exploitation of natural
resources and remarkable climate warming since the 1850s and
1950s, have resulted in significant changes in land use, rapid
urbanization and transportation networks, and consequently perma-
frost and cold region ecological environments have been profoundly
and extensively affected by anthropogenic activities. Up to date,
residents in the permafrost regions in Northeastern China have
reached 2 million people. Many new towns and forest farms
mushroomed as a result of resources development during the last
60 years; highways, railways and airports have been linked into
212 H. Jin / Cold Regions Science and Technology 64 (2010) 209–212
networks and have provided easier access to these traditionally
considered as remote regions in China. More oil and gas lines are
already planned, in design or under construction in addition to many
mega projects such as the upstream development of water conser-
vancy projects and irrigation systems along major rivers, and
increased mining in mineral resources.
Therefore, the intensity and speed of socio-economical develop-
ment in the permafrost regions in Northeastern China far exceeds
those on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau and in other Central and High
Asian regions, and those in the arctic and subarctic regions, and they
are indeed the most profoundly affected in the world. These will
inevitably result in rapid and extensive degradation of Xing'an–Baikal
permafrost under a combined impact from anthropogenic activities
and climatic changes because the permafrost is dependent on the
local and microenvironments and sensitive to external environmental
changes. For example, the areal extent of permafrost in Northeastern
China has been reduced from 390,000 km2 in the 1970s to about
290,000 km2 by 2000 (Jin et al., 2007). This dramatic change has
resulted in noted environmental changes and sent shock waves in
forest production and ecological environments in the boreal forests
and its impacts on regional sustainable development have been felt. In
order to adapt to the rapidly changing natural and engineering
environments, the evolution, development, and future trends of
permafrost and cold regions environments, the interactions of
engineering infrastructures and frozen ground, as well as the impacts
of human activities on the permafrost, need to be monitored and
studied in greater detail. In addition, on the basis of the establishing
long-term monitoring networks on the permafrost ecology and
foundation soils in cold regions, including those on the thermal,
moisture and stress/strain dynamics of the pipeline–soils systems, as
well as the pipeline operating states and structural integrity, the
geocryological studies in Northeastern China will be further deepened
in many aspects.
Acknowledgements
Editor-in-Chief Garry Timco, and many editorial staff have
provided generous support, and many insightful comments on and
advice for revising these papers, which have greatly improved the
quality of the 9 papers included in this special issue on the permafrost
pipeline. Many unidentified reviewers spent a lot of time in improving
the manuscripts and provided timely and cherished opinions on
revising these papers. In particular, Professor Emeritus Max C. Brewer
with the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage, Alaska, and Senior
Geotechnical Engineer retired from the Institute of Geotechnical
Sciences of the University of Stuttgart, Germany, provided generous,
and sometimes meticulous, support in English editing of most of those
papers. The guest editor is very much indebted to Professor Brewer,
for his strict education on arctic environment and engineering.
During my 5-year studies in the University of Alaska Fairbanks and
Anchorage, many of my advisors, including Professors Robert F.
Carlson, John P. Zarling, and Vladimir E. Romanovsky, exemplified the
quality and experiences of professional engineers and educators, and I
greatly cherish my experiences in Alaska.
The research on the pipelines in permafrost regions and the CRCOP
projects were supported by: 1) ‘One Hundred Talented People
Program’ of the Chinese Academy of Sciences ‘Research on the
foundation soils of linear infrastructures in warm permafrost regions
under a warming climate’; 2) Key Directional Innovation Program of
the Chinese Academy of Sciences ‘Formation mechanisms of frost
heave and thaw settlement hazards along the proposed China–Russia
Crude Oil Pipeline and their mitigative techniques’ (Grant No. KZCX2-
YW-311), and; 3) PetroChina Technical R&D Projects ‘Assessment and
prediction of frozen ground conditions for engineering geology along
the proposed China–Russia Crude Oil Pipeline route’ and ‘Thermal and
stress/strain analyses on and numerical simulations of the foundation
soils in a buried pipeline in permafrost regions’.
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