Thursday, 17 July 2014

Proposal under consideration for setting up Petroleum and Natural Gas Industry Safety Board

Proposal under consideration for setting up Petroleum and Natural Gas Industry Safety Board
The Minister of State (I/C) in the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas Shri Dharmendra Pradhan informed the Rajya Sabha in a written reply today that a separate proposal for setting up of Petroleum & Natural Gas Industry Safety Board (PNGISB) is under consideration in the Ministry.

Gas pipelines are built as per international standards/regulations and the operation and maintenance of the pipelines is also carried out at par with global practices. Gas pipelines are subject to periodic audits by PNGRB/OISD. Safety audits are carried out at regular intervals and the observations during audit are complied with.

In order to ensure safety and security of gas pipelines, various measures are already in place which are being carried out regularly. These include periodical internal cleaning, cathodic protection to prevent external corrosion and intelligent pigging of pipelines to identify internal metal loss, daily foot patrolling in populated/urban centers, periodical technical audit of the pipeline operations and maintenance by authorities such as PNGRB and OISD. Further, after the recent disaster at the GAIL pipeline in Andhra Pradesh, the following actions are being taken by GAIL to prevent recurrence of such incidents in future:

(i) Gas sampling and analysis at source point.

(ii) Undertaking review and benchmarking of standard operating processes with respect to global pipeline operators.

(iii) Creation of pipeline health monitoring group to monitor pipeline integrity and safety.

(iv) Increased frequency of internal cleaning of pipelines.

(v) Intense technical audit of pipeline operations and maintenance by statutory authorities.

(vi) Increased frequency of various pipeline monitoring activities.

Further, recommendations of the Committee constituted to look into the causes of the fire at IOCL’s terminal at Sanganer, Jaipur are being followed by the Oil Marketing Companies. Almost 80% of the recommendations aimed at preventing recurrence of fire accidents in oil and gas installations have been complied with.


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YKB
(Release ID :106758)

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