API Pipeline SMS Assessment Program: Key Changes and Learnings from Initial Assessment Outputs

Abstract

The American Petroleum Institute (API) represents all segments of the natural gas and oil industry, aiming to accelerate safety and environmental progress across operations while meeting global demand for affordable, reliable, and cleaner energy. Through API and partnership with the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), state pipeline regulators, and other interested stakeholders, pipeline operators developed API Recommended Practice (RP) 1173: Pipeline Safety Management Systems. API RP 1173 is designed to help operators create a management system structure to systematically manage pipeline safety and continuously measure progress to improve overall pipeline safety performance. The core principle of API RP 1173 is the "Plan-Do-Check-Act" cycle, and it requires an operator to periodically review their pipeline safety management system (PSMS) to the requirements of RP 1173 on a triennial cycle. In collaboration with industry partners, API developed the not-for-profit Pipeline SMS Assessment Program in 2019 and fully launched the offering in January 2020. In the three years since its inception, API has facilitated 14 assessments of pipeline operators’ safety management systems against the requirements of RP 1173. In doing these 14 assessments, the process for completing assessments has been tested by operators of vastly different sizes, carrying a wide array of products, from very small steam utility operators to large liquids operators with operating regions across North America. The industry has also identified specific trends relevant to API RP 1173 implementation in conducting these assessments. Specifically, it has created awareness around some areas pipeline operators continue to struggle with in creating a holistic PSMS: 1) ensuring that field-level personnel understands how their roles relate to safety performance relative to the company's PSMS; 2) incorporating learnings from external events into their PSMS so that similar incidents do not occur; 3) incorporating relevant and standardized PSMS requirements into agreements with service companies, and; 4) delineating what RP 1173 requirements mandate programmatic governance or policy within their PSMS (an industry learning). In this manuscript, API will provide an overview of the PSMS Assessment Program and changes made since its inception, an examination of the key learnings from assessment outputs to date, and a description of how the program is providing a feedback mechanism to improve industry initiatives to help operators implement RP 1173.