This week in St. Louis, the American Petroleum Institute is hosting their annual Pipeline Conference, which brings together hundreds of liquid and gas pipeline operators to discuss issues pertaining to operations, engineering, and safety.
APGA, represented by Don Stanton, Senior Director of Gas Delivery at CPS Energy, was invited to participate in the panel presentation, “The Safety Management Systems (SMS) Journey – A Pipeline Operator Perspective.” Don was joined by three other pipeline operators that represented the various sectors of the pipeline industry: liquid pipeline, gas transmission pipeline, and investor owned gas distribution companies. Each panelist shared their current progress with SMS, how it has impacted their organization and the challenges they’ve faced during implementation. APGA thanks Don for representing municipal gas systems at this important industry event!
All the panelist agreed that the SMS journey starts with a “gut check” to determine where there may be potential areas for improvement. To assist with this first step, APGA’s PSMS Task Group is working on a Planning Tool for Small Operations and will deliver this tool by the October APGA Operations Conference.
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.