Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM), TransCanada Corporation (USA) (TRP) & How Effective Are Pipeline Leak Detection Systems?

Yet control room and other personnel dismissed the warnings as false alarms triggered because of column separation. It took them 17 hours to figure out they had a spill on their hands. Once you consider the inherent problems with remote sensing, though, it’s harder to assign blame to the operators.

After all, they’re highly trained, yet still fallible, human beings who are doing the best they can with what they’re given — an imperfect technology. Richard Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts, a consulting firm specializing in pipelines, summed up this tricky dilemma:

If you get a thousand [false alarms] a month, what happens when you get a big [real] one? How do you tell the difference? You can’t.

Final thoughts
The bottom line seems to be that remote leak detection technology works as intended only part of the time, despite the millions of dollars the industry invests each year to improve it. Pipelines that have oil flowing at a constant rate are more likely to find such technology beneficial. On the other hand, pipelines with variable flow rates — a group that includes Keystone XL, as well as most new U.S. pipelines — are more likely to encounter problems with leak detection.

The unfortunate reality is that no silver-bullet solution to detect all oil spills consistently and reliably exists today. Even companies with top-notch leak detection systems and experienced control-room personnel have to face the very real risk that some leaks will go unnoticed.

The article How Effective Are Pipeline Leak Detection Systems? originally appeared on Fool.com is written by Arjun Sreekumar.

Fool contributor Arjun Sreekumar and The Motley Fool have no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

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