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On July 31, John Erickson spoke at the Louisiana Gas Association’s Pipeline Safety Seminar in New Orleans. The main focus of John’s talk was Distribution Integrity Management Programs (DIMP) and recent changes to the APGA Security and Integrity Foundation’s (SIF) Simple Handy Risk-based Integrity Management Plan (SHRIMP) program. SHRIMP is an online tool that assists operators to develop written DIMP plans meeting the requirements of the DIMP regulation.

Major changes to SHRIMP were released earlier this year. A new threat assessment interview for PermalockTM tapping tees was added. The SIF worked closely with Honeywell to ensure that SHRIMP users have access to Honeywell’s latest installation procedures for these tapping tees. Operators that have installed PermalockTM tapping tees can expect to be asked about how they are addressing potential risks the next time their state inspectors audit their DIMP program. The new version of SHRIMP also includes statistical analysis tools to determine if any performance measures indicate an unacceptable increase in risk, which is one of the items on the DIMP inspection forms.

John closed by talking about the ongoing pipeline safety reauthorization by Congress. Reauthorization offers Congress the opportunity to require the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to issue new regulations in areas that Congress feels are necessary. As with most prior reauthorizations, many of the provisions in this year’s legislation are driven by recent accidents, particularly the overpressure incident that occurred in the Boston suburbs in September 2018. He emphasized that APGA was meeting regularly with key congressional staff to ensure that the legislation does not adversely impact public natural gas systems.

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.