The Dour World of Oil Pipelines
Monday, September 10, 2007
Why start this blog?
I thought it would be a good place (and free) to record the progress I make in identifying where the pipeline goes, and the pictures I take. To be fair I have always enjoyed 'hidden' geography. From benchmarks to trigpoints to ley lines and moated sites - I have always been fascinated by features that are always, and have always been there, that I might walk or drive past every day yet no one seems to take any notice of. So I guess oil pipelines are an extension of that.
As I said in the description above Croxley is due south of Buncefield (see map under 14th Sept 06) so my first inkling was that the pipeline would be direct, especially as it was shown as a direct line on the news programme and newspapers at the time. However, starting out where the pipeline crosses the M1 j8 spur road it was apparent pretty quickly that the route was not direct but that it went south for a bit, turned sharp west and then wended its way through the sleepy bits of the countryside not far from where I live.
I started 'tracing' the pipeline at the start of 2006 - spending a couple of hours here and there with a 1:25000 explorer o/s map, my sat nav and a pencil. In a couple of months I had traced the whole route, as it meanders through the Herts and Bucks countryside and crosses the M4 and M25 in its latter stages. I had located it by finding where it intersects the roads that it must inevitably cross moving from Buncefield to Heathrow. This gave me the general route, which I have plotted on a map (which I will post later) I hadn't traced where the line crosses fields or public footpaths, and I have started doing that now. I thought it time to share my experiences, and to demonstatrate what a saddo I am!
The pipeline in question is run by the WLPS (West London Pipeline and Storage) a subsection of the BPA (British Pipelines Agency - a joint venture between BP oil UK and Shell UK) which forms part of a network of high pressure pipelines across the UK which connect storage depots to terminals airports and government depots.
I have been helped in my 'quest' by the Linewatch website and by various other websites, which I will link once I discover how(!) That's it for now. I will update this as I go.
As ever my apologies to anyone working in the oil industry who finds my conjecture laughable and my acknowledgements to the Ordnance Survey and Multimap for the maps I have used/will use.
I have postdated this post to keep it as an introduction to the website. ¶ 3:30 pm 0 comments
As I said in the description above Croxley is due south of Buncefield (see map under 14th Sept 06) so my first inkling was that the pipeline would be direct, especially as it was shown as a direct line on the news programme and newspapers at the time. However, starting out where the pipeline crosses the M1 j8 spur road it was apparent pretty quickly that the route was not direct but that it went south for a bit, turned sharp west and then wended its way through the sleepy bits of the countryside not far from where I live.
I started 'tracing' the pipeline at the start of 2006 - spending a couple of hours here and there with a 1:25000 explorer o/s map, my sat nav and a pencil. In a couple of months I had traced the whole route, as it meanders through the Herts and Bucks countryside and crosses the M4 and M25 in its latter stages. I had located it by finding where it intersects the roads that it must inevitably cross moving from Buncefield to Heathrow. This gave me the general route, which I have plotted on a map (which I will post later) I hadn't traced where the line crosses fields or public footpaths, and I have started doing that now. I thought it time to share my experiences, and to demonstatrate what a saddo I am!
The pipeline in question is run by the WLPS (West London Pipeline and Storage) a subsection of the BPA (British Pipelines Agency - a joint venture between BP oil UK and Shell UK) which forms part of a network of high pressure pipelines across the UK which connect storage depots to terminals airports and government depots.
I have been helped in my 'quest' by the Linewatch website and by various other websites, which I will link once I discover how(!) That's it for now. I will update this as I go.
As ever my apologies to anyone working in the oil industry who finds my conjecture laughable and my acknowledgements to the Ordnance Survey and Multimap for the maps I have used/will use.
I have postdated this post to keep it as an introduction to the website. ¶ 3:30 pm 0 comments
