Issues in PetroChina's management of pipeline failure data and corresponding solutions

In PetroChina, great importance is attached to the analysis and experience sharing of serious accidents, but rarely to minor accidents or incidents. In this circumstance, it is not conducive to discover rules of such accidents/incidents and thereby to guarantee the intrinsic safety of oil and gas pipelines and other production facilities. By investigating the oil and gas pipeline failure databases available in China and abroad, this paper justifies the significance of establishing and maintaining the databases, and reveals the issues in PetroChina's oil and gas pipeline failure database, such as absence of management standards and lack of system constraints and policy incentives. Considering the definitions and reporting processes of failure within failure databases in the United States, Canada, Europe and the UK and the practices of failure information collection in pipeline industry in China, this paper also recommends to further promote PetroChina's oil and gas pipeline failure database.