United States pipeline operators are no doubt aware of the regulations that expand the requirements for installing leak detection systems.
Briefly, the US Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) rule change covers a lot of areas, including the extension of the required “use of leak detection systems beyond HCAs to all regulated hazardous liquid pipelines, except for offshore gathering and regulated rural gathering pipelines. The use of such systems will help mitigate the effects of hazardous liquid pipeline failures that occur outside of HCAs,” according to the PHSMA website.
An High Consequence Area (HCA) is an area usually 660’ either side of a pipeline segment passing through developed areas where people live or gather. You can probably see why maximizing pipeline safety in those areas is indeed of high consequence.
Identify and detected pipeline leaks quicker
We won’t address the fines and penalties because no one wants undetected pipeline leaks anyway. Looking out for those issues benefits the company, our world we all live in and the community's we all work and play in.
How can Emerson help? Zedi Pipeline has been in development for many years and is continuously improve. We use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to “learn” each line’s normal operating parameters, so they know when there is a leak. Our system has been proven to detect very small leaks, very quickly.
For our AI, “learning” is a verb. It’s ongoing to keep up with changes in your system, including varying flow rates, pump changes and anything else. Business is fluid, and our AI knowledge keeps up with the flow.
The other side of this coin involves accuracy—as in greatly limiting false alarms. Some older systems created confusion by alarming for every anomaly whether it indicated a leak or not. Our systems are highly accurate, and they continue to refine their knowledge daily.
Scale your SCADA system to a cloud-based platform
Emerson's Zedi Access can use your existing SCADA system. We’re hardware agnostic, so we truly can use anything you have installed. Or, we can install exactly the hardware you need and get you up and running quickly. Some automation companies take weeks or months for full implementation, but we usually everything you need up and working for you in a few days.
Our dashboards are easy to read. They can be adapted to exactly what you need to see, including all types of reports. If it’s easier to choose from among our standard reports, great. Or if you need something unique, we can design it for you.
The new regulations are in place to help achieve what everyone wants—environmental protection, safety and profitability. The product that stays in the pipeline is a product that’s sold at the terminal.
Please let us know if you have any questions on how we can help you stay in compliance.