Thread by @Patricia_Energy

and off we go #EnergyTwitter! May the thread start! 💡

Did You Know: To provide vital #oil across the English Channel after the #DDay landings, within months secret #pipelines were unwound from massive spools to reach French ports.

https://twitter.com/Patricia_Energy/status/1136335920318296064

Following the #DDay invasion– June 6, 1944 – Allied forces would need vast quantities of #petroleum to continue the advance into #Europe. Allied leaders also knew that petroleum tankers trying to reach French ports would be vulnerable to #Luftwaffe attacks...

A top-secret “Operation #PLUTO” – Pipe Line Under The Ocean – became the Allied strategy. It would fuel victory with #oil production from the #USA petroleum industry. The secret pipeline mission used a popular #WaltDisney character for its logo. #OOTT

The first #PLUTO system required a new kind of pipe that looked more like an undersea communications cable than an #oil pipeline. It exploited existing subsea cable #technology, but instead of a bundle of wiring at its core, a 3-inch flexible lead pipe would carry fuel.

Following D-Day on June 6, 1944, Operation Pluto #pipelines fueled the advance into Nazi #Germany. Each mile of this new pipe would use over 46 tons of #lead, #steel tape and armored wire – crossing almost 70 miles from Isle of #Wright to #Cherbourg.

There's a great documentary on @HISTORY about "WWII from Space". #Pipeline was wound onto enormous floating “conundrums” that were designed to spool off the pipe when towed. As the spools unwound, the pipe settled to the bottom of the #EnglishChannel. #DDay75

@HISTORY A civilian passenger vessel, #London, was the first to be modified to accommodate a huge spool around which the new pipe would be coiled.
The first #pipeline from Isle of Wight to Cherbourg was laid on August 14, 1944, with another to follow.

@HISTORY Pipeline Issue? Yes. An alternative approach proved even more successful. This method used three-inch steel pipe, which had proven to be flexible and durable in the #oilfields of #Iraq and #Burma. Welders assembled 20-foot sections of steel pipe into 4,000-foot lengths.

@HISTORY Gen. Dwight #Eisenhower declared Operation #PLUTO, “Second in daring only to the artificial ‘Mulberry’ harbors” These deployment systems weighed 1,600 tons each, and were pulled by 3 tugboats from the British site at #Dungeness to the #French port of #Boulogne, 31 miles away.

@HISTORY 17 pipelines supplied 1000 gallons of fuel to Boulogne. By March 1945, 1M gallons of fuel were being delivered each day & Allied success was assured. The end of World War II brought a hiatus to development of undersea #pipeline #technology.

@HISTORY The longest petroleum #pipeline construction project ever undertaken had been completed in the #UnitedStates – 2 pipelines spanning 1,200 miles called Big Inch Pipelines of #WWII. #energy #OOTT #USA

@HISTORY In the shallow Gulf of #Mexico, the #petroleum industry continued laying pipe by welding individual lengths of #oil and #gas pipe together aboard barges. Today’s vessels can lay more than 3,800 tons of 16-inch pipe.

@HISTORY But by the 1960s, the #WorldWarII engineering feat of reel-laying began to reappear in the offshore industry. Today, Operation #PLUTO precedents are evident in modern pipe-laying vessels that have taken the concept of using coiled pipe to remarkable lengths.

@HISTORY Towed “conundrums” have receded into history. Coiled pipe reels now ride aboard specialized vessels – constructing a subsea infrastructure that safely connects oil and natural gas production platforms with refineries on shore.

@HISTORY The D-Day logistics of supplying troops put ashore on Omaha and Gold beaches in June 1944 included highly classified construction of artificial harbors, codenamed #Mulberrys – employing the ancestors of today’s jack-up #rigs.

@HISTORY Mulberrys used barges 200 feet long &60 feet wide – each with four retractable 60-foot pylons to provide platforms to support floating causeways that extended to the beaches. Tons of supplies and equipment came ashore in the massive effort.

@HISTORY Offshore exploration advanced rapidly after Kerr McGee’s 1947 success with the first producing well out of sight of land, the #KerrMac No. 16, which stood in only 20feet of water in the Gulf of #Mexico. Surplus World War II tenders supplied these drilling operations.

@HISTORY Construction of the Big Inch began August 3, 1942, and was completed on August 14, 1943. Little Big Inch construction began April 23, 1943, with the placing of the last pipe on the East Coast on October 8. #USA

@HISTORY The pipelines, both finished before the #DDay invasion at #Normandy on June 6, 1944, made possible the delivery of huge quantities of #oil and its refined products for Operation #Overlord, the landing in northern #France.

@HISTORY #American #oil, which amounted in all to 6 billion barrels, out of a total of 7 billion barrels consumed by the Allies for the period of #WWII, brought victory. Without the prodigious delivery of oil from the #USA. this global war, quite frankly, could never have been won. #OOTT

@HISTORY Between January 11 and February 28, 1942, 74 ships were attacked and all but one were sunk or damaged – with no losses to the #Uboats.

@HISTORY #USA #oil became indispensable for laying runways, manufacturing of synthetic rubber for tires, creating lubricant for guns and machinery and the distilling into #gasoline (particularly at 100-octane levels) for use in trucks, tanks, jeeps, and airplanes.

@HISTORY (@EnergyPress @IvankaTrump @SecretaryPerry #energy #EnergyTwitter #OOTT #ONGT #DDay75 #DDay @G7 @T7France @IFRI_ @Ifri_energie )

@HISTORY @EnergyPress @IvankaTrump @SecretaryPerry @G7 @T7France @IFRI_ @Ifri_energie No words can express the gratitude we owe to the selfless sacrifices of these brave men 75 years ago today. Humbled to take part in honoring those who committed everything to the fight. Special thoughts to my Grandfather and Father. #NeverForget ❤️

@PressSec

@HISTORY @USEmbassyFrance