Pipeline Data and MAOP Validation

PROJECT

MOAP Project

LOCATION

Large Natural Gas and Electric Utility Company, California

Background

Following a major rupture and release incident from a large diameter natural gas transmission pipeline, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued urgent safety recommendations with respect to validating the Maximum Allowable Operating Pressure (MAOP) of our client’s gas transmission lines.

Challenges

The client was required to use traceable, verifiable, and complete records to determine MAOP for gas transmission pipelines in Class 3 and Class 4 locations as well as those in Class 1 and Class 2 high consequence areas (HCAs) that do not have MAOP established through hydrostatic testing.

Additional requirements included expanding MAOP validation to their entire gas transmission system using the same rigorous records analysis, and integrating critical information into a component-based Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database.

Solutions

ENTRUST Solutions Group was retained by one of the country’s largest combination natural gas and electric utilities to support their project.

This included comprehensively researching pipeline attribute documentation, including as-built drawings, pressure test reports, alignment sheets, material purchase records, and pipeline leak reports.

For every component on the pipeline, we were asked to comprehensively verify and document key specifications impacting MAOP (wall thickness, grade, seam type, SMYS, rating, etc.).

Other components of the project included identifying and annotating all records meeting “traceable, verifiable, and complete” requirements and performing initial quality assurance/quality control on deliverables used by engineering, regulatory agencies, and GIS data migration teams.

Key Results:

At the completion of this project, the client had valid MAOP information for their entire gas transmission system and an accurate GIS database that:

Improved the quality of integrity management analyses;
Allowed prioritization of capital projects based on threats to the transmission system; and
Supported compliance with current and emerging regulations.

Project