Petrochem/Utilities Industry Trends

Building a Pipeline to a Secure Future

Issue Table of Contents

Security on the High Seas Building a Pipeline to a Secure Future A New Tool for Security Assessments Related Standards and Publications

Approximately 160,000 miles of pipeline crisscrosses the United States, according to the American Petroleum Institute (API), forming a network that is responsible for transporting 600 billion gallons of petroleum products each year. These pipelines are a linchpin in the oil and gas industry’s infrastructure — and since 9/11, industry organizations have been working closely with the government to ensure the security and viability of the pipeline network.

According to API and the Association of Oil Pipe Lines (AOPL), the U.S. pipeline network is the largest in the world. The vastness of the system offers both challenges and benefits. On one hand, there is the question of logistics — how do you go about protecting such a large and widely distributed asset? Yet on the other hand, as pointed out in an article in the fall 2004 issue of Cano Petroleum Pipeline, “That size and diversity are a limiting factor on the scope of the damage likely to result from a terrorist attack on a pipeline.” In other words, losing a single U.S. pipeline because of a terrorist attack, while damaging, would not cripple America’s oil and gas industry.

Even so, several government agencies, including the Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS), U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Special Programs Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security have been looking at ways in which they can ensure the security of the nation’s pipelines. Since passage of the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002, these agencies have worked together to build out the National Pipeline Mapping System, which contains information on natural gas transmission lines, hazardous liquid trunk lines, liquefied natural gas facilities and breakout tank farms throughout the U.S. While there are a number of uses for this system, the government also is able to use it to monitor pipeline security.

In addition, OPS has created several initiatives to increase the security profile of U.S. pipelines. These include developing a communications system that links together pipeline operators and provides them with regular information updates about security threats, implementing vulnerability assessments to identify critical pipeline systems, and working with pipeline operators to develop consensus guidelines for distribution to the industry to help companies improve their security levels.

Industry organizations are also offering guidance. In 2003, API released Security Guidelines for the Petroleum Industry, which it offers as a free download through the organization’s website. The document provides an overview of threat assessments, security plans and security vulnerability assessments, as well as security guidelines for different members of the petroleum and petrochemical industries, including pipeline operators.

According to API Senior Regulatory Analyst Bill Erny, API has established an effective security partnership with the Department of Homeland Security to develop its security guidelines, which have benefited from the experience of its international members. “Many of our members are large, multinational integrated oil companies,” he says. “And they all have a lot of experience, particularly more so in the area of security, because they operate in some remote areas of the world where there is more risk. One thing that we tried to do was to incorporate those learnings and share them with our domestic operators in the States.”

API will be releasing a new version of the security guidelines in late December 2004. The organization expects to keep the document evergreen as it gains new information. “We’re trying to keep everything up to date so we can give our membership and the industry at large the most accurate security information available,” says Erny.