Thinking and exploration on the safety management of oil/gas pipeline

In China, oil/gas pipelines are under vigorous construction, but the alternation of new and old pipelines may be accompanied with severe challenges of incidents. Many pipeline accidents occurred in recent years have revealed the deficiencies in domestic integrity management, emergency response and regulatory systems, etc. Therefore, regulatory systems and laws and standards for oil/gas pipelines abroad are investigated, and those in China are also discussed. Results show that, to ensure pipelines are safe, efficient and reliable, it is necessary to define the responsibilities of government regulation and enterprise management, to improve policies and regulations, to specify clearly the regulators and the system, and to improve the technology level and compiling mode of technical standards. Moreover, recommendations are proposed that integrity management is included into the Law on the Protection of Oil and Natural Gas Pipelines; pipeline emergency technology platform is set up systematically; qualification management is promoted for management personnel.