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Русский корабль - иди нахуй


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34 minutes ago, PTINS said:

The picture shows the above ground assets of the Sudzha Gas Meter Station in Russia. I have no information on the station itself, so I will comment on what I see and other information that is available.

The pipeline flows from the NE (Russia) to the SW (Ukraine). The 56" line is buried, and the above ground assets include 4 banks of Meter Tubes, 2 of which were damaged.

If there was damage to the pipeline itself, there would be a crater ~ 100+ ft across and 20 feet deep, with a fireball 100's of feet high, consistent with the rupture of a 56" natural gas pipeline flowing at 1,000 # of pressure, sounding something like a jet engine at full after burner. 

I expect that the yellow box in the lower left corner is an area that would include the manifolding for switching flows between the various meter banks.

This indicates the measurement may be compromised, but the pipeline itself is intact, at least as much as it was before last week.

 image.png.f779b9a414ac9c3e7397bb2d9e51ef82.png

TLDR.

The Urengoy (Brotherhood) pipeline was commissioned in 1984 and originates in the Urengoy Gas Field, ~ 2,000 miles away in northern Siberia. The pipeline flow 700+ miles across Ukraine, splitting as it enters near Sumy (Sudzha), and at various points in Ukraine and again as it moves further towards Eastern Europe. 

The Sudzha meter station shows the meter tubes, consistent with the characterization of Sudzha as a meter station, simply a custody transfer measurement point between Russia and Ukraine, to assist in doing a material balance across the pipeline system. 

Typically, a mainline Block Valve (BV) is closed and the gas is diverted from the below ground mainline to the above ground assets, in this case, the meter tubes. Each of the 4 meter banks appears to have 5 tubes (size unknown), but 5 24" meter tubes would handled the full flow gas stream.  Most measurement systems require laminar rather that turbulent flow, so you need a long straight run of pipe upstream (~ 20 pipe diameters) of the meter and downstream (5-10 pipe diameters).  This tells me the measurement capacity is (a) ~ 4X the gas flow, or the mainline flow is split into 2 smaller streams, each with a typical 100% redundancy or (b) requires 3 measurement banks, with one spare or (c) none of the above.  

The meters and tubes are specialty pieces of equipment, but smallish in nature. Necessary for most accurate measurement possible, but the older technology still works. Probably sanctioned items, but ...

Sudzha but does have any compression facilities nor does it show a "slug catcher", a structure constructed to remove any condensate (liquids) from the pipeline. 

UTOS Slug Catcher & Compressor Station, near Cameron, Louisiana

image.png.bf11288d46d2d5f637487421e374ab45.png
 

The mainline compressor sets are major pieces of equipment and the heart of the pipeline system, up to ~ 25,000 HP gas turbines with centrifugal compressors. Damages to these would be huge, irreplaceable due to sanctions. The slug catchers are massive structures ( ~15 pipe sections, 1,000 feet long, 42" diameter, with associated manifolds and gas/liquid separation capacity) fabricated to catch and stabilize the large slugs of liquids that condense in the pipelines. These are not located at the Sudzha Station.

Ukraine showed enough to get the message across; "We are here and we could have done much worse." At the same time, they have 700 miles of a Russian pipeline crossing Ukraine. They could stop the flow any time they wanted, but they also need the gas.

Apparently, a lot of that gas from that station goes to places like Hungary as well.  Who's to say Hungary gets XBillion cubic meters of Russian gas this winter and tells them they received X-Y, and only pays them for X-Y.  Hurts the Russian economy right where they need it most....oil & gas profits.   

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2 hours ago, MillerEP said:

^Not a destroyed building in sight, but safe to say they have complete control of that city

That’ll change when the Russian carpet bombing counter offensive starts.

ETA

Russia will destroy their own city to drive Ukraine out.

Edited by Parliament
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3 hours ago, PTINS said:

The picture shows the above ground assets of the Sudzha Gas Meter Station in Russia. I have no information on the station itself, so I will comment on what I see and other information that is available.

The pipeline flows from the NE (Russia) to the SW (Ukraine). The 56" line is buried, and the above ground assets include 4 banks of Meter Tubes, 2 of which were damaged.

If there was damage to the pipeline itself, there would be a crater ~ 100+ ft across and 20 feet deep, with a fireball 100's of feet high, consistent with the rupture of a 56" natural gas pipeline flowing at 1,000 # of pressure, sounding something like a jet engine at full after burner. 

I expect that the yellow box in the lower left corner is an area that would include the manifolding for switching flows between the various meter banks.

This indicates the measurement may be compromised, but the pipeline itself is intact, at least as much as it was before last week.

 image.png.f779b9a414ac9c3e7397bb2d9e51ef82.png

TLDR.

The Urengoy (Brotherhood) pipeline was commissioned in 1984 and originates in the Urengoy Gas Field, ~ 2,000 miles away in northern Siberia. The pipeline flow 700+ miles across Ukraine, splitting as it enters near Sumy (Sudzha), and at various points in Ukraine and again as it moves further towards Eastern Europe. 

The Sudzha meter station shows the meter tubes, consistent with the characterization of Sudzha as a meter station, simply a custody transfer measurement point between Russia and Ukraine, to assist in doing a material balance across the pipeline system. 

Typically, a mainline Block Valve (BV) is closed and the gas is diverted from the below ground mainline to the above ground assets, in this case, the meter tubes. Each of the 4 meter banks appears to have 5 tubes (size unknown), but 5 24" meter tubes would handled the full flow gas stream.  Most measurement systems require laminar rather that turbulent flow, so you need a long straight run of pipe upstream (~ 20 pipe diameters) of the meter and downstream (5-10 pipe diameters).  This tells me the measurement capacity is (a) ~ 4X the gas flow, or the mainline flow is split into 2 smaller streams, each with a typical 100% redundancy or (b) requires 3 measurement banks, with one spare or (c) none of the above.  

The meters and tubes are specialty pieces of equipment, but smallish in nature. Necessary for most accurate measurement possible, but the older technology still works. Probably sanctioned items, but ...

Sudzha but does have any compression facilities nor does it show a "slug catcher", a structure constructed to remove any condensate (liquids) from the pipeline. 

UTOS Slug Catcher & Compressor Station, near Cameron, Louisiana

image.png.bf11288d46d2d5f637487421e374ab45.png
 

The mainline compressor sets are major pieces of equipment and the heart of the pipeline system, up to ~ 25,000 HP gas turbines with centrifugal compressors. Damages to these would be huge, irreplaceable due to sanctions. The slug catchers are massive structures ( ~15 pipe sections, 1,000 feet long, 42" diameter, with associated manifolds and gas/liquid separation capacity) fabricated to catch and stabilize the large slugs of liquids that condense in the pipelines. These are not located at the Sudzha Station.

Ukraine showed enough to get the message across; "We are here and we could have done much worse." At the same time, they have 700 miles of a Russian pipeline crossing Ukraine. They could stop the flow any time they wanted, but they also need the gas.

A question for you on this:

Does this station more or less exist to monitor pressure?  (If I understood correctly, it isn't for sludge removal, based upon what you can see).

 

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4 hours ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

Come on man, Surly a football board:   Russia put 11 men in the box, and Ukraine is now running free behind them.

So you're saying that Russia missed the field goal and they had all fat guys on the line and nobody that could run down Chris Davis?

 

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9 hours ago, Parliament said:

Why wasn’t that done 2.5 years ago?

Something..something..about it's the Russian government, not the Russian people, that are the problem...something..something about having open dialogues between peoples.

Qanon: Sergey Brin was born in Moscow, Soviet Union.

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https://www.threads.net/@kyivpost.official/post/C-kumW4oAlu?xmt=AQGzrG6f4xJ7dm_-lI2uWC-0BtG5k0K-aSwMZDF6VdsP4w

 

Google’s AdSense and Youtube monetization programs will no longer be available to Russian accounts.
In particular, users will no longer be able to earn income using these services. Final payments for July will be made between 21 and 26 August, the company has announced.

 

https://www.threads.net/@iasenkk/post/C-lUGrZtBXw?xmt=AQGzDbo-z3AL-vN5vwj5zHoZOjoH15I3Eo2chKRMebOGJA

A video supposedly form Lgov (Льгов) which is far forward than the know Ukrainian positions and very close to the nuclear plant in Kurchatov. Kursk

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7 hours ago, The Dog said:

Once loose beyond the border, AFU can go pretty where they want. So Russia is faced with looking in every direction from the Ukrainian salient and also facing possible border break-outs elsewhere on their front. This is combined arms maneuver warfare which requires tight command & control, mobility, and situational awareness. All qualities in limited supply in the Russian army in its best of times. The real test is when does the Russian army start "breaking" in large numbers. If we see major unit surrenders and failure of units to follow orders, you will know it has started."

5 hours ago, PTINS said:

The differences between the US air logistics command, a marvel of organization & coordination, and the Russian equivalent, is staggering.

A lot of Ukrainian officers who have been around, were trained by or trained with NATO personnel in the years leading up to 2022, and since then, NATO has trained thousands of Ukrainian enlisted as well.  

The Russians had some basic training and then they'd head to their main units (the larger units had training companies or battalions within them) or a few specialized schools and finish their advanced training.  But, early on in the invasion, Russia began pulling all of their training units into the front lines because they had a very short-term view of things, and thought they could win it quickly and then go back and rebuild.  Instead, they wrecked their training units and wiped out a shitload of institutional knowledge (which was not on par with the West to begin with), to the point where we are constantly seeing mobilized getting a week or two refresher courses and being sent to the front in fucking golf carts.

It's possible Putin is abiding by the Russian Constitution and not sending conscripts into Ukraine (but after they are out for a while, can apparently be mobilized and then sent), in which case that's the only troops easily available to defend.  And given how big Russia is, I'd imagine that they have a shitload of troops scattered along various borders/outposts with countries or former republics that they are not the friendliest with (not just China).

This whole thing feels like Russia is far below what they claim in terms of manpower though.

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6 hours ago, Parliament said:

So basically Ukraine can go as far in as they trust their supply lines?  Sounds cool, but it sounded cool to Napoleon as well.

Can’t they just gas up and grab snacks along the way?

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33 minutes ago, PTINS said:

I will tell you what I know from a US perspective, where there is substantial operational and safety oversight (industry peer review) and instrumentation and telemetry that permits operational balancing on a near real time basis. Custody transfer measurement affects $$$, between the regulated pipelines, for profit pipelines, marketing companies, municipalities, end use customers, etc.  I would be surprised if Russia is anywhere close to US standards. The mega $$$ joint ventures w/ western oil companies would be the exception.

To clarify one thing, it is a "slug" , not sludge, of liquid hydrocarbons that condensed from the gas stream. You sell the heat content of the gas or the volume (gallons) of the liquid, with the liquid value ~ 5-10X gas value, depending on many different factors. The Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) are my domain.

This station is primarily a measurement facility.  That would include monitoring pressure, temperature, density, and gas composition to measure the volume and thermal content of the gas being delivered. Generally, you would have some version of this at every facility along the pipeline. Generally, Custody transfer measurement is a higher level of accuracy than operational measurement.

Usually you have measurement wherever gas enters and leaves the system, or close to lines of demarcation (borders/state lines/open water crossings, etc.).  In this case, the border crossing warrants measurement, "...this is how much gas was delivered from Russia to Ukraine." From the map below, you can see the line crossing into Ukraine near Sumy, where it branches from 1 big line into 3 smaller ones. Keep in mind this is a schematic depiction, the actual connections maybe closer to the border or further into Ukraine depending on the terrain, proximity to roads, power lines, cities, etc. Everyone of the these branches would have measurement.
 

image.png.27d62b4d51c361d4e958a2767bb5bc8a.png 

Gas (vapor) is different from oil or gasoline (liquids).  For liquid pipelines the ins and outs have to balance or something bad happens, you open a valve before you close a valve.  The compressibility of the gas allows some surge capacity; you to put more in than you take out "pack the line" and simply raise the pressure in the pipeline. Long, large diameter pipelines have a large amount of "surge or storage" capacity. Taking out more than you put in is similar, but different. Lower operating pressures affect delivery capacities, so there are limits on taking more than the contract quantities.

Ideally, the instrumentation along the pipeline has alarms for any operational anomaly that can be identified, and corrected or remedied before something bad happens. Gas will leak until it is shut off, dissipates, for finds an ignition source. Contrary to what 99% of non-industry people think, Safety is always the top priority.

I'm gonna go ahead and assume safety isn't the biggest priority in Russia.  

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1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

A lot of Ukrainian officers who have been around, were trained by or trained with NATO personnel in the years leading up to 2022, and since then, NATO has trained thousands of Ukrainian enlisted as well.  

The Russians had some basic training and then they'd head to their main units (the larger units had training companies or battalions within them) or a few specialized schools and finish their advanced training.  But, early on in the invasion, Russia began pulling all of their training units into the front lines because they had a very short-term view of things, and thought they could win it quickly and then go back and rebuild.  Instead, they wrecked their training units and wiped out a shitload of institutional knowledge (which was not on par with the West to begin with), to the point where we are constantly seeing mobilized getting a week or two refresher courses and being sent to the front in fucking golf carts.

It's possible Putin is abiding by the Russian Constitution and not sending conscripts into Ukraine (but after they are out for a while, can apparently be mobilized and then sent), in which case that's the only troops easily available to defend.  And given how big Russia is, I'd imagine that they have a shitload of troops scattered along various borders/outposts with countries or former republics that they are not the friendliest with (not just China).

This whole thing feels like Russia is far below what they claim in terms of manpower though.

We talk about force multipliers, I think Russia has force dividers.

Early in the SMO, when Russian guys were unloading trucks by hand, shell by shell rather than having pallets, I really started questioning what I thought knew.  Knowing they wrecked their training capability, which was probably B-/C+ to begin with, and watching their fiasco trying to take Hostomel Airport, nothing makes me think they have any semblance of a coordinated, well conceived plan, and that was 2 years ago.

Putting a flying chassis on their dumb iron bombs is the most innovative thing we've seen.  Pretty sure the launch point for those things is getting ready to move way back.

They have regressed to using personal trucks, golf carts and motorcycles. Up against ATACMS and F-16s?

image.png.82975a3ca0b2498827c344f96c86ba0c.png

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5 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

I'm gonna go ahead and assume safety isn't the biggest priority in Russia.  

When Conoco was building their Polar Lights Gas Plant in Russia in the 80's, they were discussing staffing levels after start up. Conoco said 25-30, Russia wanted 500.  One question came up, "What are they going to do?"

Efficiency and technology were never part of the equation, as we all know by now.

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7 hours ago, KYHorn said:

No CR, but it's good to see Graham still has a spine on this issue

"I will urge Biden to provide 🇺🇦Ukraine with all the weapons to win a war that cannot be lost," - Republican Senator 🇺🇸Graham in Kyiv.

He called the operation in Kursk "Brave, brilliant and simply beautiful. Kick Putin's ass."

And the US Congress said that private negotiations are already underway with Kyiv on the use of ATACMS on the territory of the Russian Federation 👀

 

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5 hours ago, MillerEP said:

https://www.threads.net/@iasenkk/post/C-lUGrZtBXw?xmt=AQGzDbo-z3AL-vN5vwj5zHoZOjoH15I3Eo2chKRMebOGJA

A video supposedly form Lgov (Льгов) which is far forward than the know Ukrainian positions and very close to the nuclear plant in Kurchatov. Kursk

As the crow flies, that town is about 30 miles from the border with Ukraine and about 13-14 miles from the nuclear power plant.

image.thumb.png.9a764afd0a6da195d3518325d24d7a81.png

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21 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I wonder if that reservoir next to the plant serves as the fresh water source for Kursk?  Just in looking at the satellite overviews it's really the only large body of water I see.  That isn't to say they (the Russians) wouldn't have other places to source water from, but that might be where the bulk of the water treatment for the area is done.  This would make some sense, as if you have a humongous infrastructure project like a nuclear power plant, dam and reservoir, why wouldn't you do treatment there as well?  

I'm not sure that shutting off water to ordinary citizens is a great idea (it may well be crime, which the Ukrainians don't want to commit) but if push comes to shove, armies require water.  In any event, capturing this area may well mean that don't just control the electricity in the area, but you also potentially control water as well.  

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8 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

I mean, holy shit. That’s waaaay further north than we’ve thought they were.

I think you're likely looking at the wrong town. There is another town with the same name much closer to the border in the area we know they are. 

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37 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I think you're likely looking at the wrong town. There is another town with the same name much closer to the border in the area we know they are. 

Based on this, I'm pretty sure you are correct

Korenevo is north and west of the western village of Lyubimivka.  What is confusing is that there also appears to be an eastern village, very close to Kursk proper with the same name (this might be a difference in Ukrainian spellings and Russian).  

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43 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

Based on this, I'm pretty sure you are correct

Korenevo is north and west of the western village of Lyubimivka.  What is confusing is that there also appears to be an eastern village, very close to Kursk proper with the same name (this might be a difference in Ukrainian spellings and Russian).  

FYI, it is the same Russian spelling for both towns. It's easier to search for these towns in Cyrillic because there is quite a bit of variation in the transliterated spelling (even within Google).  Technically, Ukraine has towns with the same name as well, although the Ukrainian alphabet is slightly different so there is a minor variation in spelling. A literal translation might be something like Town of Love ("lyubim" means "we love", "ovka" is used here to denote a town or place name). But since this is Russia, I'd just call it Love Shack.  

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