About the PPTS: The Pipeline Performance Tracking System, PPTS, is a key component of the oil pipeline industry's Environmental and Safety Initiative, a multi-discipline approach to understanding and improving industry performance. The availability of more detailed data is crucial to that objective. Although many individual operators had developed stringent internal reporting criteria, there were no industry-wide aggregations to enable industry to identify lead indicators and learn from them to prevent spills.
An invitation to participate in the voluntary PPTS was distributed widely in the oil pipeline industry at the program's inception in 1999, without regard to whether an operator was or is a member of API or the Association of Oil Pipe Lines. There are currently more than 50 operators participating, representing about three-quarters of the oil pipeline mileage in the United States. Participants report on all operated facilities, whether under the regulatory oversight of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Pipeline Safety or not.
Participants in PPTS report spills of 5 gallons or more plus any smaller spills to water. The spills of 50 barrels and more account for 96% of the volume. Thus, the lower threshold in PPTS results in many more spills being reported – providing a corresponding increase in the opportunities to learn from them – but the old reporting system was already capturing almost all of the volume spilled. On spills of 5 barrels or more, or incidents involving a death, injury, fire or explosion, PPTS collects data on the conditions at the time of the release, a detailed set of causes and causative factors, public safety impacts, and environmental impacts and remediation. Thus, the comprehensive new data on smaller spills will provide new insight on how to prevent larger incidents. Future fact sheets will discuss new lessons learned as they are developed.
Pipeline Operators:
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
To help you find the answer to your question as quickly as possible,
we have created these detailed and concise FAQs on PPTS and DIRT Reporting:
These FAQs address general questions regarding how to join the program, what the PPTS is, or how confidential is the data. In addition, the FAQs cover DIRT as well as technical questions concerning certain error messages that the software is displaying, what the PPTS reporting threshold is, or what materials are covered in the program.
Documents
PPTS Advisories (2006-2009)
Archived PPTS Advisories (2003-2005)
Pipeline Performance Improvement Advisories
Other files
Meetings and Workshops
Data Mining Team meeting
The DMT (Data Mining Team) is tentatively scheduled to meet at API Headquarters in Washington, DC from 8am on June 2 till noon on June 3, 2010.
Performance Excellence Team meeting
The PET (Performance Excellence Team) is tentatively scheduled to meet at API Headquarters in Washington, DC from 12pm on June 3 till 12pm on June 4, 2010.
PPTS Workshop
Joint PPTS-PHMSA Workshop
On December 2-3, 2009, API hosted a workshop for all participants in both the Pipeline Performance Tracking System (PPTS) and the PHMSA 7000-1. The workshop was held at the Hilton Houston Westchase in Houston, Texas. Here are all the workshop presentations (all files are secure behind the API firewall and require you to login to the system to access them). If you are having trouble opening up the files, please refresh and try again.
2009 Workshop
In January 2009, API hosted a workshop for all of the participants in the Pipeline Performance Tracking System. Here are all the workshop presentations (all files are secure behind the API firewall and require you to login to the system to access them).
Applications of PPTS Data (Who Uses This Stuff?) - (by David Knoelke)
Workshop FAQs (by Deborah Price)
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