Pipeline Report

The proposed pipeline from our Vernal wells to the refineries has
two major categories of choices as possible paths to the refineries.
With a mixture of public and private land options for the construction
of the pipeline this report was commissioned to determine the optimal
route. We will examine both major options for public and private. In
the end we will understand a need for some combination of the two.
The first option is to run the pipeline completely on BLM land.
The pipeline is situated on the far side of private property. There are
two paths around the private property; the shortest runs 55 miles with
a mountain in the way and the second has no natural obstacles but is
65 miles. Now the cost of running pipe on BLM land is 500,000 dollars.
The path through the mountains has some additional cost that well
evaluate later. The clear path of 65 miles had a simple arithmetic
formula of 5 x+15 x +45 x . These are the edges of the private property
with the variable equaling the running cost on BLM land. This equals
65 miles multiplied by $500,000 for the cost of running pipe with a
total of $32.5 million. The cost of going through the mountain is a little
more complex with additional cost of an environmental impact study,
delays, and the cost of tunneling through the mountain. The tunneling
cost is $3.5 million with the environmental study costing $420
thousand and a 6-month delay costing $1.08 million. That equation is
55 ( 500,000 )+ 3,500,000+ 420,000+1,080,000=33,500,000
The next option was to look at going straight across the private
property. Going this route would incur an additional $350 thousand
right-of-way fee, making the total operating cost on private land $850
thousand. The equation for this option is
2
2
850,000 ( 15 + 40 ) 36,300,000
As we can see the private land route isnt more cost effective
than the BLM options though perhaps there is some combination of the
two thatll provide the cheapest. Here a formula was found crating a
parabolic function whose lowest point would correspond to the
cheapest route
225
( + x 2)
( x )=50 ( 40x )+ 85
The left side of the equation represents the cost of BLM land, and the
right, the cost of private property. Through the use of the derivative
we find the absolute minimum to be when x 10.91 making the
lowest cost $30,310,795.33. Included with the report as all
mathematical accountings.
The interesting thing about calculus is in the way math now
begins to take on a true foreign language aspect. The concepts in a

strange way get closer to reality in application and further from

intuition. I think that this is immensely important and interesting. I
look forward to the opportunity to further my understanding of the
world through the prism of mathematics.