Kyle Bashford

Pipeline Project

To the CEO, here are the bids for the proposed pipeline scenarios, please read
them carefully.

a) The cost of running the pipeline strictly on BLM ground with two different
cases.
i) Running west, south and then east to the refinery. 8 miles west, 15 miles south, and
32 miles east. for a total of 55 miles. Labor and fees per mile are $300,000, with the
55 miles that comes to $16,500,000

Cost
C = (8 x 300,000)+(15 x 300,000)+(32 x 300,000)=$16,500,000

ii)Running east through the mountain will cost $4,100,000 plus the normal $300,000
per mile. Plus the cost of a environmental impact study of $200,000, and the project
will be delayed by 5 months, costing the company 80,000 per month, coming to
Kyle Bashford

$400,000 for the five months. So going 24 miles east from the gas well and then
heading south for 15 miles to the refinery will add up to a total of 39 miles leading to a
cost of $11,700,000 for 39 miles of pipeline. Plus the 5 months and the mountain
drilling and the impact study, the grand total will be $16,400,000.

Cost
C =(4,100,000)+(400,000)+(200,000)+(24 x 300,000)+(15 x 300,000)=$16,400,000

b) The cost of running the pipeline across private ground with two different cases.
i) Going the shortest distance from the gas well to the refinery across private lands at
an angle. After turning the whole area into a right triangle side a being 15 miles side
b being 24 miles and side c being the unknown distance, using the pythagorean
theorem side c has a length of 3 x 89^(1/2) or 28.302 miles. Going 28.302 miles the
total cost going through private property will be $10,896,248.21

Cost
C=(3 x 89^(1/2)) x (300,000 + 85,000)=$10,896,248.21

ii) Going strait south across private ground for 15 miles will add $85,000 per mile to the
already $300,000 per mile will be $5,775,000 for the 15 miles across private property
and then going 24 miles east on BLM ground to the refinery will add up to a total cost
Kyle Bashford

of $12,975,000. That’s including the $7,200,000 for going 24 miles east on BLM ground
to the refinery.

Cost
C=(15 x (300,000 + 85,000)) + (24 x 300,000)=$12,975,000

c) This case uses a function to determine the best angle to use to go across private
ground and then directly east to the refinery to minimize costs most effectively. We do
this by setting up a new equation.

θ
Y

X 24-X

c(x) = 300000 (24 − x) + 385000 ( x 2 + 225 )

(2)(
1 − 12
) (2x) − 300000

2
c′(x) = 385000 x + 225
385000x
c′(x) = − 300000

x + 225
2
385000x
300000 =

x + 225
2
Kyle Bashford

300000 x 2 + 225 = 385000x

385000x
x 2 + 225 =

300000
simplify

77x
x 2 + 225 =

60
square both sides

5929x
x 2 + 225 =

3600
3600x 2 + 810000 = 5929x 2

subtract 3600x 2 from both sides

2329x 2 = 810000

810000
x2 =

2329
810000
x2 =

2329

810000
x=

2329
simplify

900
x=

2329
or

x = 18.65909517

Now to find the angle the pipe needs to be at, going across private land.

900
θ" = tan−1
2329
15
simplify

( 2329 )
60
θ" = tan−1

or
Kyle Bashford

51.1893 degrees for convenience.Therefore this pipe should be placed at this angle
from the well until it hits BLM ground.

51.19

This second part gets the length of the stretch of pipe that heads directly east until it
900
reaches the refinery. It was labeled as 24-x so we plug it in, 24
" − which equals
2329
5.35 miles, for convenience. Y was the length of the pipeline leaving the refinery at an
2

( 2329 )
900
angle, to find it’s true length we use this equation y
" = + 225

simplified y = 23.933 miles for convenience. But all exact values will be used to evaluate
the total cost.

This last equation gets the price of the angled pipe going across private ground plus the
pipeline going east, with all costs included.
2

( 2329 ) ( 2329 )
900 900
" + 225 + (300000 + 85000) + 24 − ⋅ (300000)

Which comes to a total of =$10,819,478.55

Kyle Bashford

d) This is the minimum cost of the function C(x), in the y coordinate it shows the lowest
it can possibly get. It won’t get any cheaper than $10,819,478.55.

Graph of C(x)

Conclusion
After researching all five cases/scenarios, it is apparent that case c is the pipeline
configuration that our company should do. It will save us the most money and the most
time. I hope this evaluation has been helpful, please contact me if you have any
questions or comments.

Sincerely

Kyle w Bashford
Kyle Bashford

Pipeline Project Reflection

Honestly I’ve taken quite a few math classes and everyone of them have been
some boring project, but this one was really fun, and easy to understand. I even had a
lot of fun with the diagrams. This class has been pretty hard for me, I feel like a lot of
this material feels really new and foreign. And the homework feels often like quite a
struggle. But all in all I feel like I’ve learned a lot of new things, limits, how to get the
derivative, what the derivative is used for. I really feel like calculus is pretty useful, I had
no idea what it was before taking this class, but now I feel that calculus is very important
in todays world, as seen with this pipeline project, and calculus will still be useful in the
days to come.