Attacks on oil & gas pipelines in Iraq, Yemen, Algeria and Egypt have stepped up since the beginning of the year, causing the upstream industry major headaches.
While the obvious concern is staff safety, and loss of revenue due to downtime while pipes are fixed, the impact of supply chain breaks also causes the industry problems.
Pipeline attacks, particularly where the pipeline is breached, impact all stakeholders in the supply chain from infrastructure owner to consumer.
There is a cost in terms of loss of supply, downtime, repairs, maintenance issues, and of course the speed at which these repairs can be made, especially if getting surveyors/engineers to the scene is potentially dangerous to human life. So, what can be done to combat these attacks and the growing threat to personnel in the field? It seems that the answer partially lies in the burgeoning use of technology, such as pipeline sensors to secure remote pipelines.’
Solutions such as fibre optic sensor technology that can detect a car driving up to a pipeline, or footsteps near a pipeline, or cameras along the pipeline are now key tools in protecting the asset.
The question remains: what next? Does an upstream oil company operating in a hazardous region have to employ a small army of heavily armed security personnel on standby waiting for an attack to happen, and a helicopter to transport them to the danger zone? Do they have to call in a country’s army to protect the pipeline? Surely by the time the country’s army is alerted, or indeed a crack security team is assembled, it will all be too late, the pipeline will be blown up and oil and gas will be spewing everywhere.
So, what is the solution, and, in fact, is there a solution at all? Are pipeline breaks and the overheads associated with them an unavoidable fact of doing business in the Middle East? Let me know your thoughts on georgina.enzer@itp.com.
