New Pipelines Failing at High Rates, Raising Questions About Quality Control
From SNL:
With resistance already growing to the various pipeline projects that are in the works, this report gives added ammunition.
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The push to build new pipelines to transport abundant shale supplies appears to be having a materially adverse impact on pipeline safety.
According to a Pipeline Safety Trust analysis of federal data, new pipelines are failing at a rate on par with gas transmission lines installed before the 1940s.
"I think new models of anything — a new model of a car, a new computer, whatever — have problems when they're first put in. You have to get the kinks out. That's probably part of the explanation, but there's also some suggestions that we're trying to put so many new miles of pipeline in the ground so fast that people aren't doing construction … the way they ought to," Carl Weimer, director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, told attendees at a National Association of Pipeline Safety Representatives annual meeting in Tempe, Ariz.
"The new pipelines are failing even worse than the oldest pipelines," he said.
The trust looked at the annual average number of incidents per 10,000 miles of onshore transmission lines over 2005-2013 based on when the pipelines were installed, as reported to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
The safety watchdog found a so-called bathtub curve with high points on the ends and low points in the middle, indicating that the oldest pipes and the newest pipes had the highest rates of incidents.That whole article can be read by clicking here.
With resistance already growing to the various pipeline projects that are in the works, this report gives added ammunition.
Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter!
Follow @EnergyNewsBlog