Pipeline Engineers: What Safety Issues Keep You Up at Night?

[DouglassT]

Hi Everyone!

New member here, but I hope to add some value or at least ask good questions.

I'm really curious about pipeline safety and what pipeline engineers think and do about it.

Specifically I'm thinking:

What, in your opinion, is the biggest safety threat on most pipelines?

How do you balance the cost of safety programs with the perceived value of the service?

How does your company handle safety? Is it is priority or just a "cost of doing business"?

Does the priority for safety vary by the size of a company or is there another commonality between companies who value safety more/less?

These are just a few ideas, but please share anything you feel is important to the topic!

Tim

 

[weldstan]

Third party damage is that done by a contractor performing work located not affiliated with the pipeline but near the pipeline or subcontractor performing work on the pipeline. In short we don't need to review no stinkin drawings and our backhoe will surely only pick up dirt. Certianly it could never go through a gas line (water department hitting adjacent gas line near my place in Texas) or a gasoline pipline (Culver City, CA). Burn baby burn.

 

[cvg]

or accidental third party damage such as the 1989 product pipeline rupture in Cajon Pass. Damaged by a train derailment and only partially inspected, then quickly restored to continue product delivery to Las Vegas. It was then later damaged again by the cleanup which caused an explosion and millions in damages and loss of life.

 

[weldstan]

And I left out the theives tapping into operating pipelines - sometimes earning death as their reward and, unfortunately, death for nearby residents as well - collateral damage!

 

[uaepiping]

"Searching the code for keywords, rather than reading and understanding it from cover to cover."

Good one!
I have seen this in action in companies which (to survive in the market or what?) bid very low in the ENGINEERING jobs and then (post award) ask their engineers to finish the job within "time", and this time is already reduced to half by these big bosses who (in their own thinking) claim to know everything about every discipline and "I know how different discipline increase their man-hours".

Amazingly clients don't ask these low bidders the million dollar (or maybe more in cases of failures) question, "Did you understand the scope?"

These companies then just shoot the DELIVERABLES out of their doorsteps, dump on clients, and claim the milestone progress. Burden lies with the client engineers to REVIEW the documents/drawings who are already looking after a score of jobs ...
And this "Searching for keywords" business thrives.

God! Save the earth!

 

[jwhit]

uaepiping,
I know we don't work for the same company, but could our management teams or teams we have had experience with be cloned? I constantly hear "that doesn't apply to us" in regards to code sections that management doesn't like, or get sent on wild goose chases to prove or justify the need to follow the code. That's what the book says isn't a good enough response.

 

[austsa]

Sometimes I come across guys who don't care because any potential problems will only show up in 20 years time (long after they've retired). Then, I wonder if any of my predecessors have made similar unsound decisions that I'll wake up one day and have to deal with the fall out.

 

[BigInch]

Management needs to recognize their conflict of interest and avoid making preducial technical decisions.

I hate Windowz 8!!!!

 

[Ripz]

Thought provoking thread.

Sounds like you all contributed a lot to DouglassT's School Research Project.