The section of the El Paso Natural Gas South Mainline systemthat failed last weekend, killing 11 people and critically injuringone, had not been “properly inspected” in the 48 years since it wasfirst installed, said the chairman of the National TransportationSafety Board (NTSB) Thursday.

Separately, while El Paso yesterday notified customers that ithoped to re-open by the end of the week one of the three lines thatwere shut down following the blast, the Office of Pipeline Safety(OPS) wasn’t quite as optimistic. “At this time, there are noimmediate plans to open” El Paso’s Line 1110, said Debbie Heinz, aspokeswoman for the Transportation Department’s Research andSpecial Programs Administration, which oversees OPS. The pipelinewas in the process of completing the extensive testing requirementsimposed by OPS in a “corrective action order” Wednesday (see DailyGPI, Aug. 24).

“They have run tests on it [Line 1110]. I have not heard oneword about how the tests went. I have not heard one word that theyhave requested OPS to put it back into service. And I certainlyhave not heard anything from OPS saying that they were putting itback into service,” Heinz told Daily GPI. In addition to completingthe tests on the line, El Paso must submit a “return-to-service”plan before OPS will consider restoring service.

The pipeline, she noted, will have a high safety bar to satisfy.”They have to demonstrate to us beyond a shadow of a doubt thatthis pipeline is safe to operate,” Heinz said. She added that Line1110 is the only one of the three lines “that’s possibly in shapeto go back into service” in the near term.

The ruptured pipeline segment, which was constructed in 1952,”had never been inspected with an internal inspection tool orhydrostatically tested in all that time,” said NTSB Chairman JimHall, who toured the site of the Aug. 19 explosion near Carlsbad,NM, yesterday, which the OPS has classified as the deadliestpipeline accident since 1989.

“Although this section of pipeline as configured could notaccommodate an internal inspection tool, it could have beenpressured tested or examined by other means,” he noted. Federalregulations currently do not require such testing, Hall said, butthe NTSB has been urging mandatory testing requirements such asinternal inspections and pressure tests since 1987.

“No American would want to use any transportation vehicle thatwould not be properly inspected for 48 years, nor should we havepipelines traveling through any of our communities in thiscondition,” Hall commented.

Merrill Lynch analyst Donato Eassey said he, too, was concernedabout the inability of the El Paso line to accommodate smart pigsdue to “certain valves and certain configurations.” As a “longerterm solution,” he thinks El Paso should consider reconfiguring itsline so it can do smart pigging, a state-of-the art test fordetecting internal corrosion.

The age of the gas infrastructure in the United States also mustbe looked at, he noted. “Our pipeline infrastructure is beingstressed today more than ever. We’re putting through more moleculesthan ever to meet demand, and the 50-year-old systems may not be upto the task.”

But Jerald Halvorsen, president of the Interstate Natural GasAssociation of America (INGAA), doesn’t think 50 is old for apipeline system. “I think there’s no reason a pipeline can’t lastfor 70 or 80 years under ideal circumstances.”

Reaction in Washington to the rupture on El Paso’s South Mainsystem continued Thursday, as Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) called onthe General Accounting Office (GAO) to look into the causes of thefatal pipeline blast.

“With the recent tragic explosion in New Mexico, I wouldappreciate your agency’s assistance in reviewing the causes of theexplosion as the National Transportation Safety Board’sinvestigation unfolds, and the implications they would have” on therecommendations that GAO made in a June report about the OPS,wrote Dingell in a letter to GAO Comptroller General David M.Walker.

The June GAO report, combined with a report by the DOT’s InspectorGeneral, prompted Dingell at the time to call for a “thorough reviewand restructuring” of OPS (see Daily GPI, June 20). The GAO report painted a pictureof OPS as an agency that was soft on pipeline safety violators,failing to take agressive enforcement action and impose stiffpenalties. At the same time, it reported that the number of naturalgas and hazardous liquids pipeline accidents resulting in death,injury of more than $50,000 in damages rose 4% annually in the pastdecade.

Federal investigators “can’t be too careful when you have thistype of incident,” agreed Merrill Lynch’s Eassey. In the meantime,he said the industry is in a “kind of wait-and-see [mode] as far aswhat the NTSB and DOT will come up with…” The best scenario forEl Paso, he believes, is that “they have been in compliance andthat they can demonstrate that the pipe that they have there isstill structurally sound and can be operated.” But, he confessed,”there is a concern. The concern is that for some reason theyweren’t in compliance. However, we don’t know that forsure……Maybe this pipe is of the vintage that it now needs to bereplaced.”

Most analysts and industry sources say the fallout from the ElPaso tragedy is just beginning. “FERC has said they’re concernedabout what this is going to do to the certificate process. Everytime we have a pipeline project proposed, there’s going to be a bigdebate on this stuff. If you’re going to block a pipeline, it [theEl Paso explosion] is one more thing to throw out there…..Thisgives them [especially landowners] a little more ammunition,” saidINGAA’s Halvorsen. In fact, a landowner group in Wisconsin isciting the New Mexico accident as further reason to block theproposed Guardian Pipeline.

Also, the pipeline industry is going to see Congress pass apipeline safety reauthorization unlike anything it’s seen before,observers said. “I think you will very definitely have a verystrong pipeline safety bill passed and signed into law [this year].I don’t think there’s any doubt in that,” Halvorsen noted. WhenCongress reconvenes in September, he said he expects to see morehearings on the issue in both the House and Senate (see Daily GPI,Aug. 22).

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