Mechanical Damage Prevention
An SGA Web Conference Series of 5 Sessions
Session 5 – Monday, March 19, 2007 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM CT
- Sharing Best Practices
- Role of Technology in preventing and mitigating mechanical damage
- Program Improvement process
- Wrap-up
Go to the Summary of Session 5
DOWNLOADS
Slides
Registrants may download the session slides - grayscale, 2 slides per page PDF handout format (click here)
Registrants may download the session slides - color, 1 slide per page PDF format (click here).
Recording
Registrants may access/download the session recording (click here).
The Presenters
SGA is proud to have Blaine Keener, Keith Leewis, Dan Vetter and Bernie Selig as presenters for this session and thanks them for their participation. We are also pleased to have an open mike session with Dave Cicoria and Pat Carey. In addition many of the prior session presenters will be on-line to respond to your questions.
Blaine Keener
Community Assistance & Technical Services (CATS) Coordinator
PHMSA’s Office of Pipeline Safety. |
Blaine Keener is the Community Assistance & Technical Services (CATS) Coordinator for PHMSA’s Office of Pipeline Safety. The CATS Program, which began in 2003, seeks to facilitate communications among all pipeline safety stakeholders. Components of the CATS Program include Damage Prevention, Pipeline Repair Permit Facilitation, Public Awareness, and Encroachment. Blaine manages two Cooperative Agreements for OPS, one with the Common Ground Alliance (CGA) and one with the National Association of State Fire Marshals (NASFM).
Blaine holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Lehigh University and a Masters in Management from the State University of New York at Oswego. |
Keith Leewis, PhD, PE
Associate
PPIC |
Keith has over 30 years of practical experience in the operations and engineering sectors of the petroleum industry including, steel and pipe making, fracture mechanics, welding, and nondestructive testing. He is the Principle Integrity Manager supervising a $20million plus R&D program for Pipeline Research Council International Inc. that supports oil and gas transmission pipelines. He supports and helps direct the integrity management and system operations, primarily in Corrosion and Inspection, and Design Construction and Operations committees formerly for Gas Technology Institute and before that Gas Research. Prior to GRI, he was Senior Metallurgist at TransCanada Pipelines.
Keith has served in a wide variety of North American industry and research management positions from tenured Professor to Director of Technology. He continues to serve as a technical resource to AGA, AOPL, and INGAA and in this capacity has helped to develop and improve the management of risk and integrity and reliability of pipeline systems. Keith is a working member of both ASME and NACE and heavily involved in the design and application of the methodologies for direct assessment especially within operator integrity management programs. Keith has published over forty refereed papers and articles and is a registered engineer in Ontario and Nova Scotia |
Daniel J. Vetter, P.E.
Strategic Account Manager
Gas Technology Institute (GTI)
|
Dan joined GTI in early 2002. He is currently a Strategic Account Manager for GTI serving customers in the South, West and Midwest. Prior to his Strategic Account Manager appointment Dan was a Project Manager in collaborative research, gas operations and geotechnical programs focused on the operational side of the gas industry. Some of the programs he managed included soil compaction measuring device evaluation, pavement restoration techniques, excavation research, locating technology studies and 3rd party damage prevention.
Prior to working for GTI, Dan worked at Nicor Gas, Naperville, Illinois, in a variety of gas operations, engineering and leadership positions. Dan was a Project Engineer who supervised contractor and Nicor crews in the construction, retirement and transfer of new main pipeline projects. At Nicor Gas, his duties also included design of distribution main reroutes and replacements, installation of a distribution station and study and design of a cast iron main replacement program. |
Bernd (Bernie) Selig
Associate
PPIC |
Bernd has over 40 years of experience in the power, equipment insurance and pipeline industry. At The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Company, he was Vice President of Technology, head of the Home Office Engineering Department and responsible for the company's research and development program. Prior to that position, he was in charge of HSB's $50mm Engineering Services business unit. He acquired several small companies involved in predictive maintenance activities, which ultimately became HSB Reliability Technology, a provider of maintenance management services to a number of industries.
He led a department at Combustion Engineering's Nuclear Division that developed and provided nuclear services including refueling and nondestructive inspection services. He grew the nuclear field services division into a $40mm business by 1986.
Bernie has been a member of a number of technical societies including ASME, ANS and NACE. He was an accreditor of mechanical engineering departments for 6 years and served as a member of ASME's Board on Research & Technology Development.
Bernie has written numerous articles and technical papers during his career. Recently, he was the editor of ASME's B31.8S supplement to B31.8, Integrity Management Programs for Gas Pipelines. |
Learning Objectives
After attending this session the participant will -
| Be able to: |
Pick best practices suitable for your system and appropriately apply them. Follow promising technologies applicable for your system for potential future use. Apply a program improvement process where applicable and point to your attendance at this seminar as regulatory proof of improvement momentum. |
| Know: |
Where your MD prevention program stands relative to best practices and others’ practices. What you may have to do to improve your program. |
Know where to
find out about: |
|
Prior Knowlege Recommendations
To get the most from attending this session the participant is recommended to have the following prior knowledge -
| Material from previous sessions. |
Review |
|
SUMMARY
Blaine Keener's presentation emphasized that sections of PIPES 2006 dealing with mechanical damage are mainly for strengthening the states damage prevention programs. He also mentioned the Michael Baker study that PHMSA has commissioned on mechanical damage, which could be published by this summer. Other than DIMP, PHMSA does not anticipate a pipeline operator directed NPRM relating to mechanical damage.
An open microphone session for all participants and past presenters ensued. Pat Carey indicated that the mechanical damage data from Virginia and Minnesota shows a clear path on how to help reduce mechanical damage incidents. Limiting or eliminating exemptions from one calls and enforcing the one call state laws are both effective practices. Dave Cicoria mentioned that real time availability of records and increased use of latest communications technologies, improve the one call process.
Tim Kasprzyk was concerned about metrics when improved mapping technologies are used. The number of tickets/locates will be significantly reduced and the number of hits per activity will actually go up. Footnotes to the data to that effect may mitigate this concern. He mentioned that repayments of damages caused by contractors, has gone down to 30-40%. Their goal is to increase this significantly.
Several operators mentioned that they try to get contractors to pay for the damages they incur.
Dan Vetter of GTI and Read the Summary discussed mechanical damage prevention technologies that are in various stages of development. See either the GTI website or:
GTI Report
GRI-05/0136 "DEVELOP A COMPENDIUM OF BEST PRACTICES WITH CURRENT AND EMERGING TECHNOLGIES TO PREVENT MECHANCAL DAMAGE TO NATURAL GAS AND HAZARDOUS LIQUID TRANSMISSION PIPELINES"
IPC2006 Papers
IPC2006-10426 "The Role of Technology in Preventing/Detecting Mechanical Damage"
IPC2006-10432 "Leading Practices for the Prevention of Mechanical Damage".
It was pointed out that cost benefit analyses have not yet been published for any of the aforementioned technologies.
