WASHINGTON—Interstate Natural Gas Association of America members formally adopted Tuesday a set of five guiding principles for pipeline safety, renewing the gas-transmission industry’s commitment to safe and reliable pipeline operations.
The guiding principles stem from an INGAA board-level pipeline safety task force, established in December, charged with looking at how to improve the industry’s safety performance and restore public confidence in the natural gas pipeline infrastructure.
"The adoption of these guiding principles is an important first step," said INGAA President and CEO Don Santa. "The board-level task force will identify specific tasks for achieving each of the guiding principles and establish a timeline for completing those tasks. It also will determine ways to measure success. Our goal is zero incidents. Right now, we don’t have a perfect record, but we are committed to that goal."
INGAA Pipeline Safety Task Force Guiding Principles
1. Our goal is zero incidents – a perfect record of safety and reliability for the national pipeline system. We will work every day toward this goal.
2. We are committed to safety culture as a critical dimension to continuously improve our industry’s performance.
3. We will be relentless in our pursuit of improving by learning from the past and anticipating the future.
4. We are committed to applying integrity management principles on a system-wide basis.
5. We will engage our stakeholders—from the local community to the national level—so they understand and can participate in reducing risk.
