Pipelines are the safest way to transport energy products like natural gas, crude oil and other fuels.  The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) regulates pipelines with the help of their state partners.

According to government and industry statistics, the most common cause of pipeline incidents is improper or unauthorized digging near a pipeline.  Other causes of pipeline incidents include mechanical failure, human error and corrosion.  Read more about the causes of recent and historic pipeline incidents on the PHMSA Web site.

Pipelines operators carefully build, maintain and monitor the integrity and security of their lines.  They invest in employee training and actively work to prevent corrosion and mechanical and human error.  In addition, they work with professional excavators and homeowners to prevent unintentional damage to lines due to excavation activity.  Read more below about how operators keep pipelines safe.

Learn more:

• Learn how you can help protect pipelines in your community
• Review One-Call laws and requirements in your state
• Review information for public officials with responsibility for land use, permitting and planning

HOW OPERATORS KEEP PIPELINES SAFE

Pipelines are built according to specific design and construction procedures required by U.S. Department of Transportation regulations.

Once construction is complete, operators monitor lines, follow maintenance procedures consistent with the type, location and product being transported and communicate with those living and working near their lines.  These procedures often include:

• Patrolling pipelines from the air and on foot to identify potential problems
• Installing cathodic protection or adding inhibitors to prevent corrosion
• Implementing integrity management plans
• Conducting special training for employees who are responsible for certain tasks or duties
• Monitoring pipeline pressure and volume 24-hours a day, every day
• Preparing and practicing emergency response protocols
• Communicating regularly with those who live and work near their pipelines and emergency responders in the community
• Installing permanent pipeline markers to identify the general location of the pipeline
• Working with neighboring landowners to keep rights-of-way free of plants or structures that could impact the safety of underground pipelines or impact the operator’s ability to monitor the line
• Testing samples of the products they transport
• Participating in the One-Call process

How safe are pipelines? What are the statistics?

Pipelines are the safest and most cost-effective means to transport the extraordinary volumes of natural gas and hazardous liquid products that fuel our economy. To move the volume of even a modest pipeline, it would take a constant line of tanker trucks, about 750 per day, loading up and moving out every two minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The railroad-equivalent of this single pipeline would be a train of seventy-five 2,000-barrel tank rail cars everyday. These alternatives would require many times the people, clog the air with engine pollutants, be prohibitively expensive and — with many more vehicles on roads and rails carrying hazardous materials — unacceptably dangerous.

Pipelines have a strong safety record compared to trucks and rail. Oil pipeline spills amount to about 1 gallon per million barrel-miles (Association of Oil Pipelines). One barrel, transported one mile, equals one barrel-mile, and there are 42 gallons in a barrel. In household terms, this is less than one teaspoon of oil spilled per thousand barrel-miles.

Pipelines also generally have a better safety record (deaths, injuries, fires/explosions) than other modes of oil transportation. For example, compared to the pipeline record, there are 87 times more oil transport truck-related deaths, 35 times more oil transport truck related fires/explosions, and twice as many oil transport truck-related injuries.

Click here for more statistics.