The Pipeline, Inspection, Protection, Enforcement, and Safety Act of 2006 (PIPES), Public Law 109-468, Section 22, requires the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to review the internal corrosion control regulations to determine if the regulations are currently adequate to ensure that the pipeline facilities subject to the regulations will not present a hazard to public safety or the environment. As a follow-up to this review and the report to Congress, PHMSA is sponsoring a Workshop on Internal Corrosion in Hazardous Liquid Pipelines to allow stakeholders of the pipeline safety community to learn about and discuss PHMSA regulations, industry standards and practices, current evaluation practices and methods to assure pipeline safety.

The workshop will be held at the OMNI Hotel at CNN Center, 100 CNN Center, Atlanta, GA 30303 on March 26, 2009. Name badge pick-up and on-site registration will be available starting at 7:30 a.m. with the agenda taking place from 8 a.m. until approximately 5 p.m. Members of the public may attend this free workshop. To help assure that adequate space is provided, all attendees are encouraged to register here for the workshop. Refer to the meeting Web site for updated agenda and times.

Please Note: The workshop will NOT be webcast. However, presentations will be available on the meeting Web site within 30 days following the workshop.

PHMSA publishes requirements for the mitigation of internal corrosion at 49 CFR Part 195 for hazardous liquids pipelines. Pipeline safety regulations at 49 CFR 195.579(a) require operators to determine if the hazardous liquids they are transporting could corrode the pipeline and, if so, take adequate steps to mitigate that corrosion potential. PHMSA and other presenters plan to discuss the process of analyzing a pipeline system to determine whether internal corrosion is a threat and how to manage the threat if it exists. PHMSA will consider the discussion at the workshop and comments submitted to the docket in determining whether changes to regulatory requirements are needed and what those changes should be. PHMSA emphasizes that, while the workshop will involve issues related to Part 195, some of the technical discussions on research and methods are of relevance to natural gas pipeline operators. For this reason, PHMSA also encourages natural gas pipeline operators to attend the meeting.

Although the base commodity may not be corrosive, all hazardous liquids regulated under Part 195 could be corrosive during some phase of the production and/or manufacturing process when contaminants could be introduced. Often, the only barrier separating untreated product or corrosive materials from a pipeline transporting processed/refined products is the processing plant or refinery. These plants occasionally undergo upset conditions where all or a portion of the untreated product may bypass the treatment process and enter the downstream piping. During those upset conditions, corrosive materials might be introduced into the pipeline and could create a corrosive condition. Pipeline operators who previously concluded that an internal corrosion control program was not needed may need to critically re-analyze operating conditions and internal corrosion risk factors and periodically monitor, or otherwise reconfirm, that the pipeline is free of corrosive materials. Operators should perform a periodic system analysis and document the results, confirming that they properly analyzed the pipeline for possible internal corrosion precursors. In addition, operators should also conduct periodic monitoring for changes that might increase this risk and identify possible sites of selective internal corrosion risks.

For further information contact: Joshua Johnson at (816) 329-3825, or by e-mail at joshua.johnson@dot.gov.

Editor’s Note: I’m a Georgia Tech grad, and the meeting is just a few blocks from campus. Join me the night before to get ‘2 naked dogs walking’ at The Varsity. If you’ve been there, you’ll understand.