The pressure to get engineering projects done and constructed as fast as possible in order to take advantage of the high prices in metals and petrochemicals has been driving companies to skip the conceptual phase and go straight into basic engineering with cost estimates in the level of 15% accuracy. By-passing early engineering and demanding higher cost estimating accuracy is a contradiction. In most cases, savings made on capital investment is much higher had money been spent in conceptual studies which allow for the optimal solution to be found. This paper reviews one of the key aspects in conceptual engineering of slurry pipeline designs: route selection. This activity is often overlooked, causing capital cost and operating difficulties to rise unnecessarily. This paper describes and gives example on how an integrated client/engineering company's approach to route selection can produce significant savings in pipeline construction and operating costs.