Watching Government: Pursuing pipeline safety

Dec. 24, 2012
The US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration is expected to announce new safety regulations in 2013 under the latest federal pipeline safety law.

The US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration is expected to announce new safety regulations in 2013 under the latest federal pipeline safety law. Oil and gas pipeline owners and operators have not been simply standing around and waiting.

The Interstate Natural Gas Association formed a board-level pipeline safety task force in 2010 to pursue ways to further improve the industry's safety performance. Early the next year, it established five guiding pipeline safety principles with a goal of cutting pipeline accidents to zero.

"INGAA is engaging stakeholders continuously-including the National Transportation Safety Board, federal and state regulators, safety advocates, first responders, and the public-to discuss our efforts and conduct a dialogue about the path forward," Donald F. Santa, the association's president, said on Nov. 14.

"INGAA members have acted voluntarily, and are moving forward transparently," he continued. "We understand that regulation often takes time but that pipeline safety is too important to delay."

Santa's remarks came after the NTSB listed enhancing pipeline safety as one of the top 10 US transportation challenges for 2013.

Andrew J. Black, president of the Association of Oil Pipelines, said at the time that his group's members reported this past summer that they spent more than $1.1 billion on pipeline integrity management in 2011. They also announced an additional $1 million investment in new research to improve in-line pipeline technology and inspection capabilities.

They and INGAA also planned to take up NTSB's recommendation to develop a pipeline industry safety management systems standard with representatives from industry, the public, and government, AOPL's president added.

'An all-in meeting'

That meeting took place Dec. 18. It was shaping up as "an all-in meeting" with PHMSA and state regulators to determine high-level common elements of safety management systems to suggest to all oil and gas pipeline operators, Black told OGJ a few days before.

"It's more than reflexively responding to the NTSB," he explained. "Pipeline operators see this as a holistic approach to improving safety. Many already have something like a safety management system, although they might not necessarily call it that."

Ron McLain, vice-president of engineering and operations in Kinder Morgan Inc.'s product pipelines division, told PHMSA advisory committees this month that four American Petroleum Institute standards already address safety. He also confirmed that many carriers already have implemented their own programs.

McLain said that it will take at least 18 months from the Dec. 18 meeting for the safety management systems team to develop proposals, receive comments, and publish final versions for submission to API members for a final vote. Ideas obviously will continue to percolate. Improving pipeline safety is that important.