Pipeline Engineering and Project Services

SPEC has been working with pipeline operators in California and the greater southwestern USA for more than 40 years and is the leading provider of pipeline engineering and design services for high pressure, welded steel pipelines in the region. We have the expertise to assist clients in the front end planning and development stages of projects to determine the optimum solution, and to carry through with effective execution of the detailed engineering and project management to achieve project success.

SPEC’s pipeline team of more than 80 engineers, designers, surveyors, and field representatives completes approximately 200 pipeline projects each year for our pipeline clients – both liquid petroleum pipeline operators and major gas utility and transmission companies. Typical services associated with these projects include the following:

New Pipelines and Relocations (both urban and rural): planning, route studies and selection, GIS exhibits and data management, cost estimating, survey/mapping, subsurface utility research, design, alignment sheet preparation, permitting, right-of-way acquisition, traffic control plans, construction and material specification, construction management.

Freeway, Railroad, and Waterway Crossing Design: Horizontal Directional Drill (HDD) planning, specification, and design, micro-tunneling, slick bore, jack-and-bore, 3D modeling.

Environmental Permitting Support: process and/or support the project environmental submittal documentation, coordinate environmental assessment, negotiate and implement environmental mitigation measures, and obtain environmental permits and approvals for the work.

Pipeline Integrity Support: ILI specification and inspection/repair, hydrotest procedures, surge analysis, fault crossing analysis.

Surveying: pipeline easement surveys, plat maps, legal descriptions, design support, construction staking, as-built surveys.

Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) and Coordination: substructure research and compilation, surveying, potholing, planning, scheduling, estimating.

Pipeline Abandonment: idle pipeline research, mapping, assessment, estimating options, management.

Procurement: material specifications, vendor quotations/bid evaluations, material delivery coordination.

Construction Management: field engineering, contractor RFI’s, client interface.

Stress Analysis: hot oil pipelines, settlement, geotechnical hazards, fault crossing design.

GIS: hazardous classification studies, high consequence areas, risk assessment, feature studies, route planning, data management.

Pipeline System Modeling: surge analysis, batching, thermal transient analysis, pressure relief and protection systems.

Pump and Compressor Stations: new stations, rate increases, efficiency improvements, upgrades.

Station Facilities: storage and relief tanks: control, relief, metering and proving systems, shipping, delivery, and receiving systems.

Automation: mainline valves, stations, metering, SCADA, security.