Pipeline OQ – the costs of Non-Compliance

When it comes to the associated costs of pipeline incidents, adherence to safetystandards and federal regulations is a no-brainer. PHMSA’s final OperatorQualification (OQ) Rule of 1999 paved the way for operators to improve safetyrecords by putting responsibility on Operators to develop OQ plans. Thisrequired them to qualify their personnel, including their contractor personnel,on tasks that could a!ect the safety and integrity of pipelines.

But the demand on Operators to manage the qualification of hundreds ofcontractors, thousands of workers, as well as their own internal personnelpresents additional layers of risk. To mitigate this, Operators have utilized theassistance of qualified, independent third parties, such as OperatorQualification, to evaluate their contractor and internal personnel.