What the science says: pipeline safety with PRCI

A conversation about the research, collaboration, and science behind safer, cleaner, and more efficient pipeline operations. Featuring Gary Choquette, Executive Director of Research at the Pipeline Research Council International (PRCI).

Gary Choquette, Executive Director of Research at PRCI, talks to Elizabeth Corner about:

• What PRCI does, and how it decides what to focus on.
• The Technology Development Centre in Houston – and why it’s a game changer.
• The industry's readiness for hydrogen, CO₂ and future fuels.
• Why collaborative research beats solo efforts every time.
• How PRCI supports transparency, safety and trust in the public eye.

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Sponsoring this episode of the World Pipelines Podcast is the TDW SmartPlug® Isolation System — The safest inline isolation system on the market. Learn more here. 

Creators and Guests

Host

Elizabeth Corner

Elizabeth leads the editorial teams at World Pipelines, commissioning articles and features, and representing the magazine at industry events.

Guest

Gary Choquette

Executive Director of Research at PRCI – the Pipeline Research Council International.

What is World Pipelines Podcast?

The World Pipelines podcast, with Elizabeth Corner, is a podcast that connects and unites pipeline professionals to learn about issues affecting the midstream oil and gas industry.

Elizabeth Corner: 00:01

Hello, and welcome back to the World Pipelines Podcast, a podcast series for pipeliners. I'm your host, Elizabeth Gorner. And in this season of the podcast, I am talking to people from membership associations for the pipeline sector. For this episode, I'm happy to be joined by Gary Choquette, Executive Director of Research at the Pipeline Research Council International, or the PRCI. Gary joined the PRCI as a Senior Programme Manager in 2012.

Elizabeth Corner: 00:33

He has worked in the natural gas transportation industry for over forty years, and his experience encompasses a whole host of disciplines, including facility design, construction, technical support, hydraulic modelling, compression performance, noise, vibration, controls, software design, SCADA, and gas measurement. He currently manages the execution of PRCI's research efforts. He earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Nebraska and is a registered professional engineer in the state of Texas.

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Elizabeth Corner: 01:53

So hello and welcome, Gary. Thanks for being on the podcast.

Gary Choquette: 01:57

I'm glad to be here. Thanks, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Corner: 01:59

Now in order for us to understand how PRCI contributes to the safety of pipeline operations, maybe you could begin by talking us through what the council does and maybe talking us through its mission statement.

Gary Choquette: 02:12

Sure. We have a wide portfolio of research efforts that we do for the pipeline industry that really they span from wellhead, mostly storage in our case, all the way to where we deliver it to cities. So that's the pipeline, that's the compression facilities or pump as the case may be. And all the integrity associated with all those assets. As an engineered systems pipelines, just like any other physical system can fail.

Gary Choquette: 02:42

So it's our job to look at where those failure points can exist and what we can do differently to reduce the probability of those failures. We also look at performance. So how's the system performing relative to how it should from an efficiency standpoint. And again, what we can do to improve and maintain the efficiency. All of that leads to the development of better technologies and methods.

Gary Choquette: 03:07

And that in turn makes it the safest, most reliable form of bulk energy transportation. We've been doing that for over seventy years as PRCI.

Elizabeth Corner: 03:15

And how does PRCI identify what are the most critical research needs in the industry? How does it pinpoint what those are?

Gary Choquette: 03:26

Yeah. And that's a big challenge because the list is always bigger than we have funds and resources to do it. So the biggest challenge is the prioritization of what we want to do. We have two basic approaches to do that. The first one is what we call strategic research priorities.

Gary Choquette: 03:44

And that's where our members collectively say this is a group or suite of projects that is of high interest and importance. And as one example, we've got a strategic research priority around greenhouse gas emissions reductions. We have another one around managing cracks in pipelines. For those projects, everybody pays proportionally. It's automatically funded.

Gary Choquette: 04:08

So that's a high level approach. The other approach is a bottom up approach. We have eight different technical committees and each technical committee decides what the goals are that they want to achieve as a technical committee and what the gaps are related to those goals. And then they build research ideas around closing those gaps. And for those, the members literally vote their dollars to determine what projects get funded.

Gary Choquette: 04:35

And so it's kind of a democratic way to determine priorities from a financial standpoint.

Elizabeth Corner: 04:40

Brilliant, so on the one side you've got member raised issues and on the other side you have your separate committees and then you prioritise within that. And do you differentiate between what you see as near term improvements as opposed to long term research and development?

Gary Choquette: 04:57

Yeah, do both. I would say the majority of the research we do is what we would call high TRL, technical readiness level type research. We really try and focus mostly on the applied research but we do get involved in some of the more lower level research that does have a longer time span as well.

Elizabeth Corner: 05:16

And what would you say is the most exciting research project that's currently underway at PRCI? The ones that you talk about?

Gary Choquette: 05:24

Yeah, so that puts me on the spot because as a pipeline nerd, I love them all, right? They're all my children kind of thing. We have over 150 active research projects right now and they run the whole gamut, like I say, from the well tip all the way to the delivery. We've got a lot of work with emerging fuels type stuff. So hydrogen and some CO2 work, a lot of greenhouse gas emissions reduction work.

Gary Choquette: 05:48

We've got some geohazard work related to protecting water body crossings for pipelines. But I'll say if I could only narrow it down to a few projects that I'm most proud of, I would have to say it's the work that we do at our technology development center in Houston. We have a facility where we have real world pipe defects and then we run inline inspection tools in NDE technologies on those defects and through that process we've really been able to improve the capability of those tools to more accurately define those defects which is a big benefit for the pipeline industry.

Elizabeth Corner: 06:28

Talk me through how PRCI collaborates with pipeline operators, with regulators and with other industry stakeholders. What kind of relationships do you have with those entities?

Gary Choquette: 06:40

Sure, so our membership is made up of pipeline operators plus also service providers, so we've got a natural insight to what their needs are and the way we conduct our research that also gives us a natural insight to is the research applicable at the end of the day to something that will benefit the operators. But we also have formal arrangements with a lot of organizations including API, EPRG, APGA, GERG, INGAA, PODS, AMP, ASME, you know, the list goes on. And then we also have informal arrangements with organizations like Common Ground Alliance, the Pipeline Safety Trust, the Gas Machinery Research Council that we, it really is beneficial for us to make sure that we're picking up wherever somebody left off rather than starting from where we think the current state is. And that's because there's just not enough time, not enough monetary resources to do it all ourselves. So it's really beneficial for us to collaborate.

Gary Choquette: 07:48

We also work with the government agencies. We have an organization within our group called the Government Engagement Committee. Currently that's FEMSA here in The U. S, the Canadian energy regulators, the health and safety in England are members of that body. They help guide us from their perspective as what they see as priorities and gaps.

Gary Choquette: 08:09

So at the end of the day, we'll work with anybody that postures our mission. Anybody that is willing to help us out, let us know.

Elizabeth Corner: 08:17

Brilliant. And how is PRCI supporting the development of new technologies? You mentioned your center in Houston. How are you working to improve pipeline integrity and reduce environmental impact?

Gary Choquette: 08:31

Yeah, well the most direct answer to reducing environmental impact is keep the product inside the pipeline. So anything we do to improve the integrity of the pipe as well as once it does leave the pipe, how do we detect in a real timely manner that there is a leak. But there's also technologies around other environmental aspects. Every time you have a pump or compressor, there's power required to do that. So there's emissions associated with that.

Gary Choquette: 08:59

So greenhouse gas emissions reductions, as well as efficiency maximizing the efficiency of the system. Most of our work occurs in the integrity aspect, so making sure that the asset is good and again that's back to improving inline inspection tools, up with models. If you do have a defect, is it a defect that needs to be repaired or not? How do you repair the defect without having to blow the line down? There's a lot of work that we're doing in that area and almost all of that in some way or another reduces the environmental footprint of operating pipelines.

Elizabeth Corner: 09:35

On this series of the podcast we've heard from TD Williamson about the work that they've been doing with the PRCI. Who else have you been working with? Can you talk about that?

Gary Choquette: 09:43

Yeah, so TD Williams is one of our members, Baker Hughes is one of our members, Rosen is one of our members, all of those develop those type of tools and so that has been really beneficial to have them as part of our membership because again, they guide us to what is possible from their perspective. And of course, everybody that's an operator always wants better performance, lower cost of operation, all that type of stuff. So collectively with the combined insight, come up with a better track of where we can go to help drive technology to be both of their needs.

Elizabeth Corner: 10:21

Absolutely. And then alongside the technical side of things, what role does the PRCI play in helping the industry as a whole adapt to new requirements, so new regulatory requirements, new safety standards?

Gary Choquette: 10:35

That's a great question. The best research in the world is of no value unless people can actually use it. And our research usable either by directly providing tools. So we have what we call the on bottom stability tool that we use for offshore applications to determine wave action movements on the pipeline. But we also work with other standards organizations and with our membership to feed our results into their standards or best practices as it is.

Gary Choquette: 11:07

So we have members that participate not only on PRCI but they might also participate on API as standards committees and so we share our reports with those bodies so that they can incorporate that into best practices than anybody can use.

Elizabeth Corner: 11:23

And we know that pipelines are playing a role and will play a role in the energy transition as we move forwards. How is the council adapting its research focus accordingly?

Gary Choquette: 11:34

Yeah, great. As I touched on earlier, we've got a lot of research going on related to hydrogen and CO2. Obviously those are transition type fuels and I say fuels even though CO2 is not a fuel, it will be part of the energy transition through the sequestration type thing and even the hydrogen that we produce, a lot of that will be blue hydrogen, so sequestration will be involved with that. We've transported CO2 for many years, but what we haven't done is transport it that has trace components of things that we'll see in sequestration. So there'll be nitrous oxide, for example, there, which is a corrosive gas.

Gary Choquette: 12:17

There will be traces of maybe hydrogen in that CO2. That that's the kind of change management that as an industry really need to be on top of. How do those little components that we've not seen before impact the performance of the pipeline? Corrosion aspects, dispersion modeling aspects. There's lots of change management type things that we need to be on top of.

Gary Choquette: 12:39

And so again, we get everybody together and say, what is it that we don't know that will be existing in this new environment that we've not seen before. Hydrogen is especially challenging because of the embrittlement aspect of some steels with that. So how much can you handle in a blend safely with existing systems? There's a lot of areas that need additional research to really make sure that we can reliably and safely transport these fuels.

Elizabeth Corner: 13:06

And what would your message be to pipeline operators who are looking forward to this, the changes to come, thinking about those future fuels? You know, what is your perspective on the future here? Should they be diving straight into it? Should they be moving forward with caution?

Gary Choquette: 13:24

That's a great question. So, the answer in my opinion is it's coming, right? We know we will have a change, so you need to be prepared and ready to accommodate this change. But if you again, go back to the aspect of we transported natural gas for decades, almost hundreds of years now. And so we know how to do that.

Gary Choquette: 13:48

We've actually forgotten what we know in some cases just because we've gotten to the point where it's so reliable. But if you start introducing differences that are significantly different and hydrogen fits that category, you really need to start from a fresh perspective and say, I'm a molecule of hydrogen and I'm traveling down this pipeline and what am I going to touch and how is that going to interact with the systems and change how those systems operate compared to my normal? And that is really way more challenging than you think, right? Because hydrogen embrittlement is one issue. You've got polymers that hydrogen can absorb into the polymers.

Gary Choquette: 14:26

That there's all kinds of things that we've just, you know, don't intuitively know if we're so comfortable operating one way and now we've got to suddenly change another way. And that's where, in my opinion, the collaborative effort really makes a huge difference because you get people looking at it from different perspectives that they will see things that can be potential issues that you alone could never see. So, whatever you do, if you're going to introduce something drastically different in your system, the process safety management change control process is super important and that's where leveraging some standards body or collaborative research like PRCI is really, really helpful.

Elizabeth Corner: 15:06

It's an exciting time, isn't it?

Gary Choquette: 15:08

Terribly exciting. But what's interesting is this isn't the first time we've approached hydrogen as a fuel. Back in the 1970s is when PRCI first started doing hydrogen research. Back then it was because there was a perceived shortage of natural gas and we're looking for alternatives. Now we're looking at hydrogen for different reasons, but still trying to address and make sure we have all the issues in place.

Gary Choquette: 15:32

What's different now is we're looking more at blends versus pure hydrogen systems although there will certainly be some pure hydrogen systems out there as well.

Elizabeth Corner: 15:41

And are you practicing with those blends at your facility in Houston?

Gary Choquette: 15:45

Not at the TDC but we do have operating members of our PRCI that actually have hydrogen systems, some of them 100 hydrogen, that they're operating now. So obviously we're doing learnings from their experiences with that as well.

Elizabeth Corner: 16:01

Great, and with the increasing public scrutiny of pipeline infrastructure, how does PRCI help the industry stay transparent, stay trustworthy in the eyes of the public? How do you help with that cause?

Gary Choquette: 16:15

Yeah, sure. That's an excellent question. The first thing I want to emphasize is there are risks with pipelines and the pipelines will fail like say every other system. But as far as a transportation method, it's by far the safest system that's out there. Statistically, at least here in The US, people have a higher risk crossing the street than they do living next to a pipeline.

Gary Choquette: 16:40

And so that's one aspect I think that the public generally overlooks is when we have failures they tend to be very bad and that's because there are lots of energy involved. But the frequency of those failures is very low. But that said, any failure is something we want to try and avoid. And as far as how do we get the competence of the public, it's really that we PRCI focus on what does the science say. And we do not involve ourselves in any kind of lobbying or any kind of politics or that type of stuff.

Gary Choquette: 17:16

This is what the science says. We pass the science on to the regulators, we pass the science on to the standards bodies, we incorporate that and then the industry adopts the best practices based on what the science says.

Elizabeth Corner: 17:30

And to finish off our discussion, want to talk about the way you bring people together at the council. So I know you have events, I was lucky enough to attend one of your annual events a few years ago and what impressed me was that while it was a really inclusive event, there were some bits of it, Gary, where you kicked me out, you didn't let me sit in and sit with the operators. And I felt that was really important that you were providing this sort of safe space for the operators to talk about the things that really concern them and that they can work on together. Is that something that you still do at your event?

Gary Choquette: 18:05

Yes we do. Candid conversation where there's not concerns about backlash or any of that type of stuff is really important. But I'll say the personal part I like the most about our events is each company sends the brightest people in the industry related to whatever specific topic there is. So you have experts in mechanical damage and in geohazards and corrosion and measurement. And when you get all these different experts talking together about what the issues and problems are, the creative energy that's involved with these best minds all working together, looking at different angles on the same issue, it's fantastic.

Gary Choquette: 18:48

The solutions you get with that kind of collaborative work are way above what any one of them alone, even as experts could do by themselves. And it just makes the whole process much higher in value and quality and again more applicable and more efficient to get to a solution than anybody working alone.

Elizabeth Corner: 19:07

Thank you so much. It's been really wonderful to talk to you today. Thank you.

Gary Choquette: 19:12

My pleasure Elizabeth, pleasure talking to you.

Elizabeth Corner: 19:17

Thanks again to Gary Choquette at PRCI, as he helped describe the ways in which the Council pushes forward pipeline research and development for the improvement of safety and integrity for everyone. Thanks for listening to the World Pipelines podcast. Subscribe for free wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have enjoyed this episode, please do rate and review and forward to a colleague or friends.

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