|
GAO proposing pipeline safety change A proposed pilot program would create a more nuanced system for monitoring pipelines and remove current seven-year interval By Eric Lidji For Petroleum News
A federal pilot program proposed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office would give gas pipeline operators more freedom in maintaining the safety of their systems.
The program would allow operators to use individualized information they have collected about their systems to determine when a specific pipeline should be tested for integrity.
The Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002 required pipeline operators to perform these integrity assessments on “high consequence” pipelines by the end of 2012, and again every seven years afterward. The seven-year requirement is successful, but somewhat inefficient, according to the GAO. While this method “resulted in critical repairs being made” — including more than 1,000 between 2004 and 2009 — it prevents operators from being able “to focus resources on areas of greatest importance.”
The alternative to this unsophisticated seven-year assessment would be to allow operators to schedule testing using risk-based criteria. Those criteria include highly specific warning signs discovered while operating and maintaining the pipelines within a system.
In general, the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration — the federal agency responsible for most Lower 48 pipelines — wants operators to be able to use risk-based criteria to guide their maintenance programs. In 2008, the agency even drafted a process to help operators determine which pipelines could be checked less frequently than every seven years, such as pipelines carrying relatively pure methane.
Congressional approval The realities of the regulatory process, though, have stalled this proposal.
Because the seven-year requirement is a federal statute, for instance, changing it would require a Congressional amendment, something the GAO recommended back in 2006.
Even with Congressional approval, the change would increase the workload on state and federal regulators. They would have to standardize the process for hundreds of operators.
“Without such guidance,” the GAO wrote in its new recommendations, “operators could use a range of approaches for determining the relevant risk to gas transmission pipelines, potentially creating challenges with reviewing and justifying reassessment intervals.”
To ease this transition, the GAO wants PHMSA to craft guidelines for operators use as they determine risks to their systems and decide how frequently to test specific pipelines within those systems. The GAO also wants PHMSA to prepare a report or develop a pilot program to study how a change in the rules might impact regulators and operators.
In preparing its report, the GAO spoke to federal and state regulators, industry associations, safety and environmental groups and technical experts, and 27 pipeline operators, including the Alaska Pipeline Co., an affiliate of Enstar Natural Gas Co.
| 