A comparison of onshore oil and gas transmission pipeline incident statistics in Canada and the United States

This study analyzes the mileage and incident data between 1995 and 2016 corresponding to the onshore oil and natural gas transmission pipelines regulated by the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) of the United States. The analysis indicates that the material/weld/equipment failure is the leading failure cause for both CER and PHMSA pipeline incidents. The annual average incident rates of the CER and PHMSA pipelines are in the order of 10−3 per km except for the PHMSA gas pipelines, the annual incident rate of which is in the order of 10−4 per km. The annual average rupture rates of the CER and PHMSA pipelines vary from 3.5 × 10−5 to 4.5 × 10−5 per km. The F-N curves for the PHMSA pipelines are developed based on the mileage and incident data to quantify the societal risks posed by the pipeline in general.