Acknowledging that long-term improvements are needed, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) formally filed with state regulators Friday its multi-year plan to upgrade its natural gas pipeline infrastructure and operations to make them “one of the safest in the country.”

The plan filed with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) includes much of what the San Francisco-based combination utility has been talking about since the rupture and explosion last September of its Line 132, a 30-inch diameter pipeline in San Bruno. It comes as federal regulators are poised to give their final determination on the causes of the incident, which killed eight people, and as the CPUC prepares to issue stiffer pipeline safety rules and regulations.

Separately, the CPUC indicated Friday it expected implementation plans from the other major pipeline operators in the state — Sempra Energy’s two utilities and Las Vegas, NV-based Southwest Gas Corp. — reiterating that the five-member commission last June ordered all gas pipeline operators to do this (see Daily GPI, June 10).

“We are moving diligently to improve pipeline safety in California, and the testing and replacing of pipelines plays a major part in our efforts,” said CPUC Commissioner Mike Florio, who also noted that state regulators are “moving quickly” to establish new rules for safe, reliable gas pipeline operations. Florio said the state has already ordered what federal regulators are just now considering.

As part of the CPUC effort, Florio announced that the commission will hold a public workshop on natural gas emergency response planning Sept. 26-27.

Last year PG&E conceptualized a Pipeline 2020 Program, and the utility underscored that earlier effort in its filing on how it proposes to verify and upgrade the integrity of “all” of its nearly 6,000 miles of gas transmission pipelines to meet the stiffer state and federal requirements. PG&E listed those measures as:

PG&E emphasized that since the San Bruno explosion, the utility has taken a number of steps, such as pressure testing, replacing and conducting inline inspections on older pipelines and separating gas operations within the overall utility with a new senior executive heading those operations (see Daily GPI, June 20).

The new executive vice president for gas operations, Nick Stavropoulos, said Friday’s CPUC filing represents an entirely new approach by PG&E and what will be duplicated by other gas utilities. He called it a “clear break” from past ways of approaching pipeline safety.

“Under the CPUC’s leadership, with PG&E’s full support, the state has taken lessons learned from several independent investigations of the San Bruno tragedy and adopted new standards to help ensure that such an accident never happens again,” Stavropoulos said.

PG&E’s filing is what Stavropoulos described as a “multi-year plan” to test, verify and upgrade the pipeline system to meet what he thinks will now be “rigorous standards.”

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