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United States Department of Transportation
On October 22, PHMSA and the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) co-sponsored and facilitated a public workshop on Assessment and Repair of Anomalies in Pipelines at the Gaylord National Hotel in National Harbor (Oxon Hill), Maryland. Approximately 175 attendees representing Federal and State regulators, industry, researchers, manufacturers, vendors, and the public from both the United States and Canada attended the workshop. The current regulations contained in 49 CFR 192.485 and 192.713, allows latitude in methods used for assessing and remediating pipe with corrosion anomalies to restore the serviceability of pipe. PHMSA has found a wide variation in operators' interpretation of how to meet the requirements of pipeline safety regulations in assessing, evaluating, and remediating corrosion anomalies. The workshop allowed the review and discussion of appropriate repair criteria for evaluating anomalies to meet regulatory code requirements for the permanent field repair of imperfections and damages. The workshop also allowed attendees to discuss the implications of research results and the potential need for regulatory changes or modification of industry standards.
A workshop on Cased Pipeline Integrity Assessments was held in Chicago on July 15th & 16th. PHMSA, the National Association of Pipeline Safety Representatives (NAPSR), NACE International and several industry organizations (AGA — American Gas Association, API — American Petroleum Institute, INGAA — Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, and APGA — American Public Gas Association) working through a joint steering committee, sponsored, organized, planned and executed this workshop. The workshop brought together over 160 representatives from State (6) and Federal (8) regulatory agencies, trade associations (5), operators (97), service providers/vendors (34), researchers (12), and Standards Committees (6).
The workshop's goals included opening a dialog amongst all relevant stakeholders to identify key challenges facing industry and regulators on assessing carrier piping in casings (particularly in High Consequence Areas), sharing information on current research efforts, and identifying potential solutions involving understanding of current regulations, regulatory changes, revised standards, revised operating practices and/or research practices that can help to meet the challenges.
The first day included panel presentations and discussions on the following:The second day initially was going have break out sessions in the morning to have additional discussion on operator assessment practices, service providers, research options and standards development; however the attendees voted overwhelmingly to have just one session and to have an open dialog between attendees on all of the above issues. This way all of the attendees could hear first hand the dialog and the discussions regarding casings assessment methods and other relevant information. There was then an afternoon panel on long term issues, including discussions on whether or not casings are still needed in some/all applications
The workshop was successful in identifying key challenges facing industry and regulators in assessing cased pipelines in order to meet regulatory requirements under the Gas and Liquid integrity management program. PHMSA is in the process of reviewing all of the comments and questions presented at the workshop and will formulate a strategy of going forward. Such a strategy may consist of forming a new working technical committee(s) to investigate some of the options, focused research to determine if there are any additional methods of assessment, or having smaller follow-up meetings with stakeholder groups.
Background documents, presentations, and additional supporting materials are present below. A summary report including key challenges identified, potential solutions by stakeholder group, and next steps is still being finalized, but will soon be on the website as well.
This notice announces a public meeting of PHMSA's Technical Pipeline Safety Standards Committee (TPSSC). The committee will meet to vote on two proposed rules; (1) Standards for Increasing the Maximum Allowable Operating Pressure for Gas Transmission Pipelines and, (2) Pipeline Safety: Polyamide-11 (PA-11) Plastic Pipe Design Pressures.
The purpose of this workshop was to educate pipeline operators about a Joint Industry-Government Project to provide next generation technologies for ROW Surveillance in order to reduce 3rd-party damage and encroachment.
This meeting was held to begin work to develop uniform, nationwide expectations for pipeline marker location and content and OPS enforcement policy to further reduce the risk of excavation damage to gas transmission and hazardous liquid pipelines.
This meeting was held to review the status of and lessons learned from pipeline operators' implementation of pubic awareness programs.
This was the inaugural meeting of the Pipelines and Informed Planning Alliance (PIPA). The PIPA focus is to develop more detailed guidance for land use and property development in the vicinity of transmission pipelines.
