With the development of research, drag reducers are becoming more and more mature and have entered the stage of commercial application. The main performance is as follows: less addition, high drag reduction rate; shear resistance, no obvious degradation during storage, transportation and use; no adverse impact on oil processing and oil quality; simple injection equipment, easy injection process; domestic production of drag reducer. Whether in the design of new pipelines or in the operation of existing pipelines, the use of drag reducer can obtain considerable economic and social benefits. The advantages of using drag reducer in oil pipeline are mainly reflected in the following aspects:

Construction investment

An important basis for the design of new pipelines is the annual capacity of pipelines, but there are many uncertain factors affecting the annual capacity of pipelines.For example, it is impossible to estimate the reserves of an oil field accurately. Market conditions require changes in pipeline throughput and oil types.These uncertain factors can be taken as the design basis according to the relative economic data, leaving a part of design margin, and balancing this part of margin with drag reducer. Reducing the pipe diameter and compressing the construction scale of the pump station can greatly save the construction investment of the new pipeline. China's oil pipelines are designed according to the annual capacity. The selected pipe diameter and wall thickness, pump station and equipment are generally larger and more conservative, with poor adaptability to the change of transmission capacity. This not only results in high investment, but also uneconomical operation.

Increase throughput

Especially in the neck section, after adding drag reducing agent, the transportation capacity can be increased, so that the whole pipeline transportation capacity can be increased to meet the requirements of multi transportation and fast transportation. It can adjust the oil transportation plan flexibly, meet the market demand and create economic and social benefits to the maximum extent. In order to increase the elasticity of pipeline transportation and adapt to the change of oilfield production, it is of great practical significance to apply drag reducing agent technology.With the increase of oil field production, the pipeline needs to be expanded in stages. Sometimes, it may cause a lot of waste to rush on. Taking the expansion of the Dongying-Huangdao pipeline as an example, the planned production of the oil field increased significantly in 1985, and the pipeline was required to exceed the capacity by 30%. Therefore, four additional booster stations were built, with an investment of RMB20 million and a construction period of half a year. However, after the completion of the project, the output of the oil field was not as expected, and four pumping stations were idle. It is obvious that the investment can be greatly saved if the technology of increasing transportation with drag reducing agent is selected. Pu- Lin line also expands the booster station first, and then increases the auxiliary pipe, but it has little effect in practice. Obviously, in the pipeline oil transportation, because of the unclear prospect of the oil field, the situation that the output changes greatly often occurs. For example, it is feasible technically and reasonable economically to use the injection of drag reducer to solve the contradiction of the large increase of the output in a short time.

cost reduction

In order to reduce the cost of maintenance and reconstruction, the pump unit or pump station can be maintained and renovated without shutdown.We can also use drag reducing agent to stop some pumping stations with hard conditions and bad environment and reduce personnel. For example, the oil pipeline from Golmud to Lhasa passes through the Qinghai Tibet Plateau with an average altitude of more than 3000m. There are quite a lot of pumping stations located at an altitude of more than 4700m, so it is very difficult for people to survive. It is possible to use drag reducing agent and automation technology to shut down some intermediate pump stations and reduce personnel. This will not only bring significant economic benefits, but also great social benefits.

Improve safety and reliability

For example, the Eastern oil pipeline network in China has been running for more than 30 years. Due to the serious corrosion of the inner and outer walls of the pipeline, the pressure resistance of the pipeline is greatly reduced. It is particularly important to reduce the working pressure of the pipeline and improve the safety and reliability of the system.The use of drag reducer as a short-term emergency measure has great advantages. But for the pipeline that needs long-term transportation, because of the need of a large number of drag reducing agents, its economic benefit is not obvious, and the drag reducing agent injection device is added in the oil transportation system, so that the operation volume and failure rate of the whole system are increased, which is not conducive to daily operation and management. Therefore, it is necessary to give priority to the technology of drag reducer and not blindly follow the application. It can be predicted that in the near future, as a new transportation technology, the technology of injecting drag reducer will create greater economic and social benefits for China's pipeline industry.