The Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission unanimously adopted new regulations covering flowlines and related oil and gas systems. The Feb. 13 action came following months of investigations and hearings after an Apr. 17, 2017, explosion and fire in an abandoned flowline killed two people and injured another in the town of Firestone.
“We believe these new rules are another important step in the aftermath of the Firestone tragedy,” said Gov. John W. Hickenlooper (D). “State government and local municipalities depend on the commitment that industry is doing everything to keep our communities safe.”
Anadarko Petroleum Corp., which operated an older vertical well about 200 ft away from where the house that caught fire was located, shut in more than 3,000 producing vertical wells, or a total of 13,000 b/d net equivalent of production, in northeastern Colorado about a week after the explosion and fire (OGJ Online, Apr. 27, 2017).
COGCC, which is part of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, ordered oil and gas operators in the state to inspect their flowlines and verify that any not in use are fully abandoned by May 30 (OGJ Online, May 4, 2017). The May 2 order also directed operators to document the location and integrity of any existing flowline within 1,000 ft of a building by June 30.
Hickenlooper announced eight policy initiatives in August following a 3-month review of oil and gas operations in Colorado in response to the accident (OGJ Online, Aug. 22, 2017). They included improving COGCC’s flowline regulations and enhancing the 811 “one-call” program.
The rules adopted on Feb. 13 strengthen requirements for designing, installing, maintaining, testing, tracking, and abandoning flowlines, which most typically move fluids around specific oil and gas developments from wells to separators to storage tanks or to larger pipelines, COGCC officials said.
They said that oversight changes and improvements included:
• Requirements for more-detailed tracking, location data, and record-keeping for flowlines that carry fluids away from a specific oil and gas location, such as lines that may travel from a well to a storage tank not co-located on the same well pad, or to a gathering line. The rule permits COGCC to share resulting, more specific geospatial information with local governments through a confidentiality agreement.
• Requirements that any flowlines not in use, but not yet abandoned, are locked and marked. All such lines must continue to undergo integrity testing under the same standards as active lines until abandonment. Any risers associated with abandoned flowlines must be cut below grade. This rule change makes permanent the post-Firestone order to eliminate above-ground risers connected to abandoned flowlines.
• More-detailed requirements for operators to demonstrate flowline integrity, including updated standards for integrity-testing lines, more testing options that align with newer technology, and the elimination of pressure-testing exemptions for low-pressure lines.
• Requirements for full operator participation in the Utility Notification Center of Colorado’s “one-call” program to ensure a centralized home for all data on flowline locations and access to that information through the established 811 “call-before-you-dig” system.
The Colorado Oil & Gas Association (COGA) called the new regulations tough but acknowledged that additional oversight will make an already safe industry even more so. COGA Pres. Dan Haley said, “Moving forward, all new and older flowline endpoints will be mapped, and all oil and gas companies will be required to participate as Tier 1 members of the 811, one-call system. This is an unprecedented move, as no other industry in the state is currently required to participate at that high a level.”
Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].
