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PHMSA’s Gas Pipeline Advisory Committee Meets on Gas Transmission Rulemaking

By Erin Kurilla posted 12-21-2017 10:28 AM

  
Last week, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s (PHMSA) Gas Pipeline Advisory Committee (GPAC) met for the third time to discuss the Safety of Gas Transmission & Gathering Lines Rulemaking. Rich Worsinger from the City of Rocky Mount represents APGA operators on the committee. He is joined by four other industry representatives, five representatives from government, including Steve Allen, who is the Pipeline Safety Director from Indiana Public Utilities Commission, and five representatives from the public.

There were three topics covered during the meeting: material verification for transmission pipelines, Maximum Allowable Operating Pressure (MAOP) confirmation for specific transmission pipelines, and strengthening integrity assessment methods for transmission pipelines.

The GPAC voted to approve a material verification process modified from the original proposed rulemaking. Instead of an explicit requirement to perform material verification on high risk transmission pipelines that are missing records, the GPAC voted to codify a process an operator is to use to gain unknown material attribute information. The approved process can now be referenced in applicable sections of the pipeline safety regulations. The committee was careful to ensure that this process would be limited to only gas transmission pipelines and would not be applicable to gas distribution or gathering pipelines.

The committee began discussions on MAOP reconfirmation and strengthening integrity assessment methods for transmission pipelines. There was significant conversation during the MAOP confirmation agenda item on two key questions: what are the appropriate requirements, thus dedication of resources, for low risk pipelines (i.e. those operating less than 30 percent Specified Minimum Yield Strength (SMYS) with small Potential Impact Radius); and, should an operator be required to perform actions associated with integrity management on a pipeline to confirm its MAOP? These two questions will be further discussed and ideally resolved at the next GPAC meeting.

The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for March 24-26, 2018 near Arlington, Va., and there is a fifth meeting anticipated June 12-14, 2018.

APGA will work closely with the other industry trade associations to develop post meeting comments. These comments will attempt to summarize the meeting and suggest code language for those topics that were resolved. APGA will continue to work with APGA members with transmission pipelines to ensure the industry comments are representative of APGA positions.

Meeting presentations and transcripts will be posted at https://primis.phmsa.dot.gov/meetings/MtgHome.mtg?mtg=127&nocache=9447.

For questions on this article, please contact Erin Kurilla of APGA staff by phone at 202-905-2904 or by email at ekurilla@apga.org.

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