North America | pipelines


The politics of US pipelines


One of the biggest challenges facing the North American energy industry is how to deliver the huge new shale oil and gas fl ows made possible by new technologies such as horizontal drilling and fracking in a safe and effi cient manner. The novel nature and location of much of these new hydrocarbon products is just part of the problem, the energy industry also faces a proliferating range of environmental, regulatory and political pressures. Selecting a delivery option can no longer be deter- mined by a simple cost- benefi t analysis. The choice of pipeline, road, rail, barge or coastal tankers will depend on the interplay of safety issues, operational and capital costs, as well as environmental and regulatory considerations. In the aftermath of recent large scale accidents,


there appears to be growing public, political and regulatory concern over the absolute and relative safety of different transportation modes for oil and gas industry products. Examples include the oil train railway explosion in July 2013 in Lac-Megantic in Quebec in which 47 people died and the explosion in February 2014 on a major natural gas pipeline in southern Kentucky, which led to a forced evacuation of residents. Incidents such as these have sparked growing public and political concern over new energy transport projects, most visible in public protests against TransCanada’s Keystone XL project and the


Vital pipeline projects are facing


intense and delaying scrutiny in the US, to the benefi t of rail, barge and


road. Nicholas Newman explains why pipelines will, in the end, win out


mile-long crude oil trains moving through cities such as Philadelphia to the refi neries on the Delaware River on the east coast. The fundamental question being asked today is: How


safe and reliable are pipelines? Given that some 40% of US oil pipelines were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s and 15% of the country’s 281,000km network even earlier, according to data from the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, it is a fair question to ask. However, reliability is less a question of age and more one of pro-active and effective maintenance, argue pipeline operators. “The age of the pipe shouldn’t make any difference,”


says Pat Denial, CEO of pipeline operator Enbridge. That view is supported by US Department of Transpor- tation safety statistics (Figure 1), which show that pipelines incur fewer spillage incidents and personal injuries than either road or rail. US casualty statistics


May 2014 | PIPELINE COATING 21


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