Oil & Products Pipelines

Current Operational Complexities, Future Expansion Challenges

Constructing, operating, and maintaining oil and petroleum product pipeline facilities are complex, multi-faceted undertakings that involve myriad safety, regulatory, and environmental issues.

Interstate pipeline companies transporting oil and other petroleum products or hazardous liquids must comply with federal minimum pipeline safety standards.  In addition, owners and operators of intrastate pipelines must comply with state, and possibly local, pipeline safety requirements.

Apart from existing pipeline infrastructure, questions abound over how the burgeoning U.S. biofuel industry will transport its products.  Certain biofuels can be batched through existing pipelines while others will require new infrastructure.  Likewise, future options (or mandates) for carbon sequestration may create demand  for a new network of CO₂ pipelines connecting industrial facilities and other CO₂ emitters with CO₂ storage sites.

Finally, capital requirements, risk profiles and pipeline ownership structures are sure to change in the coming years as these questions are resolved.