Skip to content
  • About the Project
  • Meet the Team
  • Partners
Support Us
  • Support Us
  • Inside Energy
  • Inside Energy
  • Home
  • Podcast
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Data
  • Educators
  • IE Questions
  • IE Investigations
    • Energy According To Trump
    • Protesting The Pipeline: Standing Rock And The Dakota Access Pipeline
    • Your Natural Gas Boom Is Leaking
    • Feasting On Fuel
    • Reclamation Blues: The Lingering Legacy Of Fossil Fuels
    • Blackout: Reinventing The Grid
    • Denmark’s Road To Renewables
    • The Future Of Coal
    • The Fallout From Falling Oil Prices
    • The Oilfield Spill Problem
    • Energy And The New Congress
    • Boom 2.0
    • Dark Side Of The Boom
    • The Solar Challenge
    • The Pipeline Network
    • Coal Watch
  • Newsletter
  • Support Us
  • Get To Know Us
    • About the Project
    • Meet the Team
    • Partners

Inside Energy - Bringing energy reporting down to Earth

Inside Energy (https://insideenergy.org/2014/08/26/gathering-lines-and-pipeline-regulation/)

  • Home
  • Podcast
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Data
  • Educators
  • IE Questions
  • IE Investigations
    • Energy According To Trump
    • Protesting The Pipeline: Standing Rock And The Dakota Access Pipeline
    • Your Natural Gas Boom Is Leaking
    • Feasting On Fuel
    • Reclamation Blues: The Lingering Legacy Of Fossil Fuels
    • Blackout: Reinventing The Grid
    • Denmark’s Road To Renewables
    • The Future Of Coal
    • The Fallout From Falling Oil Prices
    • The Oilfield Spill Problem
    • Energy And The New Congress
    • Boom 2.0
    • Dark Side Of The Boom
    • The Solar Challenge
    • The Pipeline Network
    • Coal Watch
  • Newsletter
Bakken

New Pipelines Evade Federal Regulation

By Alisa Barba | August 26, 2014
More
  • More on Bakken
  • Subscribe to Bakken

Stephanie Joyce/WPM

Segments of the "Double H" crude pipeline ready to be laid outside of Douglas, Wyoming.

Inside Energy and Wyoming Public Radio’s Stephanie Joyce have been reporting on pipelines for the past few months, with a series of stories that outlined the planned expansion of pipelines, the history, and testing of the lines. We have more stories to come on this issue, looking at the financing of this “midstream” part of the oil and gas industry and how landowners are compensated for new pipelines.

In the meantime, this story from NBC News caught my eye.  There are three main types of pipeline that carry oil and gas across the country:  gathering lines, transmission lines, and distribution lines.  Transmission lines – which carry fuel to refineries – and distribution lines – which carry gas to homes and businesses – are larger and operate at a higher pressure.  These two types of lines are regulated by the federal government’s Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).

Gathering lines, on the other hand, were traditionally smaller and used a lower pressure to transport oil and gas from wells to processing facilities.  Because they were considered safer, and ran through relatively unpopulated areas, gathering lines do not fall under federal safety and construction guidelines.

Here’s the problem (as originally reported by InsideClimateNews in 2013): the country’s oil and gas boom has led to an explosion in pipeline construction across the country, mostly in gathering lines from wells in new shale plays like the Marcellus in Pennsylvania, or the Bakken in North Dakota.

 By 2020, the number of miles of gathering lines is expected to almost double, to 405,000. By 2035 about 654,000 miles are expected to be in place, according to the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, an industry group.

And these gathering lines will be different from those of the past. Again, from ICN:

To accommodate the volume and pressure of the gas coming out of fracked wells, gathering lines are now 12 to 36 inches in diameter, instead of 2 to 12 inches. They operate at much higher pressures, too.

Whether or not a gathering line is regulated depends on how close that line comes to homes and businesses.  Currently only 10 percent of the country’s 240,000 miles of gathering pipeline is regulated.  Here’s what happens when a pipeline is regulated:

Operators of regulated lines must give state or federal regulators details about their operations, including pipeline diameter, exact location and maximum operating pressure. They must also inspect and maintain their lines and report details of any accidents, including fatalities, injuries and property damages.

In 2011, a PHMSA advisory committee urged the regulator to consider new safety requirements for gathering lines.  In 2012, the Government Accountability Office recommended the same.  PHMSA is still gathering comments and has yet to take action on these reports.  Meanwhile, a few states – Ohio, Texas and North Dakota – have moved to regulate new gathering lines on their own.

 

More
  • More on Bakken
  • Subscribe to Bakken
Tags
  • Inside Energy News
  • Moving Energy
  • Bakken
  • Inside Energy Now
  • marcellus
  • Pipelines

About Alisa Barba

Alisa Barba is Inside Energy's Executive Editor. She worked for NPR as a regional bureau chief for 12 years and also edited Fronteras, a public radio collaboration along the southwest border.

  • More by Alisa

Read Next

  • On The Hunt For Methane Leaks

    Burning natural gas for electricity is much cleaner than coal. But there’s a problem – leaking methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Nearly 2 years ago Colorado implemented rules to try to limit methane leaks from natural gas infrastructure. Now the EPA is proposing to model federal rules on Colorado’s. Still finding and plugging leaks remains a challenge nationwide. In Pennsylvania, where thousands of gas wells and pipelines are working the Marcellus Shale, researchers are trying to figure out how much is leaking. For our Inside Energy project, The Allegheny Front’s Reid Frazier tagged along.

Previous Post
Anatomy Of Colorado's Oil And Gas Ballot Compromise
Next Post
Rooftop Solar For All
Inside Energy is a collaborative journalism initiative of partners across the US and supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
  • Inside Energy
  • About The Project
  • Meet The Team
  • Newsletter
  • Contact Us
  • Terms Of Use

Search This Site

Browse Archives

© Copyright 2023, Inside Energy

Inside Energy is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News

Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Back to top ↑