Blogs

PHMSA Stays Enforcement of Underground Storage Rule

By John Erickson posted 06-21-2017 03:42 PM

  
On June 20, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing that PHMSA will not issue any enforcement citations for failure to follow certain provisions of its underground storage regulations. On December 19, 2016, PHMSA published an Interim Final Rule (IFR) titled “Safety of Underground Natural Gas Storage Facilities.” The IFR incorporates by reference two American Petroleum Institute (API) Recommended Practices (RP): API RP 1170, “Design and Operation of Solution mined Salt Caverns used for Natural Gas Storage;” and, API RP 1171, “Functional Integrity of Natural Gas Storage in Depleted Hydrocarbon Reservoirs and Aquifer Reservoirs.” PHMSA issued this IFR in response to a statutory mandate in section 12 of the ‘”Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act of 2016.” On January 18, APGA joined the American Gas Association, API, and the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) in a petition seeking reconsideration of the IFR because it made the non-mandatory recommendations in the RPs mandatory. The petition also contended that the implementation periods were impracticable and should reasonably be extended.

The June 20 notice informs the petitioners and other interested persons that PHMSA intends to address the issues raised by the petitioners in a final rule, which it expects to issue by January of 2018. In the interim, and for one year after the publication of a final rule, PHMSA will not issue any enforcement citations to operators for failure to meet any provisions that are non-mandatory in an API Recommended Practices RP 1170 and RP 1171 but that were converted to mandatory provisions by the IFR. APGA will continue to follow the development of these regulations.

A copy of the notice can be found here. For questions on this article, please contact John Erickson of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-0834 or by email at jerickson@apga.org.

Permalink