The American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Liquids Energy Pipeline Association (LEPA) have released the latest of their annual reports on pipeline safety showing how liquids pipelines have become significantly safer over the last five years.
The analysis, 2024 Pipeline Performance Report, details how total liquids pipeline safety incidents impacting people or the environment have dropped by 13 percent since 2020, including a 33 percent drop in incidents caused by “integrity management issues” and a 22 percent drop in incidents caused by “operations and maintenance issues.”
Overall, there were 42 fewer incidents in 2023 than in 2019, even though the industry has built more than 3,000 additional miles of pipeline in the intervening period and is delivering 15 percent more barrels of liquid. The rate of the number of incidents impacting the environment or people fell from 0.0033 incidents per million barrels of liquid delivered in 2019 to 0.0027 incidents per million barrels delivered in 2023.
Large safety incidents—those of 500 spilled barrels or larger—have declined by 7 percent since 2020 and now represent only 4 percent of total incidents. The report also notes that 66 percent of safety incidents were less than 5 barrels spilled, and 85 percent of incidents were less than 50 barrels spilled.
“Out of sight and out of mind, pipelines consistently deliver the energy our nation depends on with fewer incidents per barrel delivered every year,” said Steven A. Yatauro, chairman of the API-LEPA Pipeline Safety Excellence Steering Committee, in the report’s introduction. “These products are at the root of a vital supply chain that both drives productivity, innovation and growth and provides a wide array of benefits to businesses and consumers. Pipelines remain critical to achieving the goals of energy dominance and energy security while adding lower-carbon options for our country.”
Because supplies of natural gas are limited, and because some politicians try to undermine fossil fuel production at every step, prices are necessarily driven up. Higher electricity costs disproportionally hurt low-income families, who naturally spend a larger percentage of their money keeping the lights on. Adding pipeline infrastructure would lower electricity prices, thereby raising living standards, stimulating long-term economic growth, and creating a substantial increase in net jobs.
Living standards increase because lower-cost electricity frees up money for consumers to purchase additional goods and services, which improve people’s lives. Economic growth and net job numbers would also increase, because the newly available money spent on goods and services would spur job growth throughout the economy.
Instead of trying to shut them down, legislators should work to ensure infrastructure such as pipelines continues to grow and meet ever-increasing demand for fossil fuels. Making sure the necessary pipeline mileage is built to keep up with this demand—or at the very least is kept stationary rather than reduced—remain stationary—is crucial for helping families across the United States take advantage of the economic benefits these pipelines provide.
The following documents provide more information about pipelines and oil and natural gas.
2024 Pipeline Performance Report
https://aopl.org/documents/en-us/1e14ec3b-9b98-46f3-aa54-808792b8a13a/1
This report from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the Liquids Energy Pipeline Association (LEPA) details how total liquids pipeline safety incidents have dropped by 13 percent over the last five years.
What If … Pipelines Aren’t Built in the Northeast?
https://heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/what-if–pipelines-arent-built-in-the-northeast
This study is the fifth in a series of studies produced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy. It examines what continued opposition to new pipeline infrastructure projects in the Northeast would mean for the residents and businesses of those states. This opposition could lead to the loss of greater than 78,000 jobs, $7.6 billion in GDP, and $4.4 billion in labor income in the region by 2020.
Impacts of the Natural Gas and Oil Industry on the U.S. Economy in 2019
https://www.api.org/-/media/Files/Policy/American-Energy/PwC/API-PWC-Economic-Impact-Report.pdf
This study, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute, shows that the natural gas and oil industry supported 11.3 million U.S. jobs in 2019, produced $892 billion in labor income, and had a nationwide economic impact of nearly $1.7 trillion. The study also shows the natural gas and oil industry has had widespread impacts in each of the 50 states.
America’s Progress at Risk: An Economic Analysis of a Ban on Fracking and Federal Leasing for Natural Gas and Oil Development
https://www.api.org/~/media/Files/Oil-and-Natural-Gas/Hydraulic-Fracturing/2020/fracking-ban-study-americas-progress-at-risk.pdf
The study from the American Petroleum Institute (conducted by economic modeling firm OnLocation) warns that banning federal leasing and fracking on public and private lands, which some presidential candidates have proposed, would cost up to 7.5 million American jobs in 2022 alone, lead to a cumulative GDP loss of $7.1 trillion by 2030, slash household incomes by $5,400 annually, increase household energy costs by more than $600 per year, and reduce farm incomes by 43 percent due to higher energy costs. If a ban is enacted, the U.S. would flip from being a net exporter of oil and petroleum products to importing more than 40 percent of supplies by 2030
What If…Hydraulic Fracturing Were Banned? (2020 Edition)
https://www.globalenergyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/2019-12/hf_ban_report_final.pdf
This study from the Global Energy Institute at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says a ban on fracking in the United States would be catastrophic for the U.S. economy. Their analysis shows that if such a ban were imposed in 2021, by 2025 it would eliminate 19 million jobs and reduce U.S. GDP by $7.1 trillion. Tax revenue at the local, state, and federal levels would decline by nearly $1.9 trillion combined. Natural gas prices would leap by 324 percent, causing household energy bills to more than quadruple. By 2025, motorists would pay twice as much at the pump for gasoline as oil prices spike to $130 per barrel, while less domestic energy production would also mean less energy security.
The U.S. Leads the World in Clean Air: The Case for Environmental Optimism
https://files.texaspolicy.com/uploads/2018/11/27165514/2018-11-RR-US-Leads-the-World-in-Clean-Air-ACEE-White.pdf
This paper from the Texas Public Policy Foundation examines how the United States achieved robust economic growth while dramatically reducing emissions of air pollutants. The paper states that these achievements should be celebrated as a public policy success story, but instead the prevailing narrative among political and environmental leaders is one of environmental decline that can only be reversed with a more stringent regulatory approach. Instead, the paper urges for the data to be considered and applied to the narrative.
Nothing in this Research & Commentary is intended to influence the passage of legislation, and it does not necessarily represent the views of The Heartland Institute. For further information on this subject, visit Environment & Climate News, The Heartland Institute’s website, and PolicyBot, Heartland’s free online research database.
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Tim Benson joined The Heartland Institute in September 2015 as a policy analyst in the Government Relations Department.
