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Global Marketplace

www.read-tpt.com

J

uly

2014

77

statutory monitoring authority that was abolished in May

2012. Its revival has stalled in the Australian Senate.

Chevron Australia managing director Roy Krzywosinski

told Mr Massola that his company, which is lead operator

in the A$54 billion Gorgon LNG project and A$29 billion

Wheatstone LNG projects in Western Australia, wants

structural changes to industrial relations laws.

“All of us – industry, government, buyers, sellers and

unions – have a shared mutual interest [in reform],” he told

Mr Massola. “We need bipartisan support now to address

Australia’s high-cost environment to secure its next wave of

LNG investment.”

The APPEA has estimated the cost to Australian

companies of delivering LNG to Japan – their biggest

market – at up to 30 per cent higher than for rival producers in

Canada and Mozambique.

When natural gas leaking from

New York’s complex and corroded

infrastructure finds an ignition

source, results can be deadly

“It is a danger hidden beneath the streets of New York City,

unseen and rarely noticed: 6,302 miles of pipes transporting

natural gas.” (“Beneath Cities, a Decaying Tangle of Gas

Pipes,” the

New York Times

, 23 March)

Manhattan-based Consolidated Edison, one of the largest

investor-owned energy companies in the US, owns the pipes

that serviced two buildings in East Harlem levelled by an

explosion in March, killing eight people. A

Times

analysis of records collected by the

federal Department of Transportation for

2012 shows that Con Ed had the highest

rate of leaks in the country among natural

gas operators whose networks totalled at

least 100 miles.

According to the

Times

reporters Patrick

McGeehan, Russ Buettner and David

W Chen, leaks like the one believed to

have led to the explosion in East Harlem

are “startlingly common.” Federal records

show that they number in the thousands

every year. The chief culprit, say experts,

is the perilous state of New York City’s

underground network, one of the oldest in

the country.

The

Times

team detailed “a glaring

example

of

America’s

crumbling

infrastructure.” In 2012 alone, Con Edison

and National Grid, the other distributor of

natural gas in New York, reported 9,906

leaks in their combined systems, which

serve the city and suburban Westchester

County. More than half were considered

hazardous, federal records show.

‘V

intage

pipes

of

iron

or

bare

steel

There are more than 1.2 million miles of gas main pipes in the

United States. Last year, gas distributors nationwide reported

an average of 12 leaks per 100 miles of those pipes.

As reported in the

Times

, communities across the country

have been struggling to replace thousands of miles of these

old, metal pipes with pipes made of plastic or specially coated

steel that are less prone to leakage.

New York City presents an especially daunting challenge.

Nearly half of the gas mains operated by Con Edison and

National Grid were installed before 1940, according to federal

records consulted by the

Times

. More than half of these

are made of cast iron, wrought iron or unprotected steel

– materials that are vulnerable to corrosion and cracking,

especially in cold weather.

Con Edison estimates that replacement of all of the old

mains in its network right now would cost as much as

$10 billion. Despite the high cost and logistical hurdles,

alarmed regulators at the state’s Public Service Commission

have ordered the company to significantly step up its

replacement schedule, from 50 miles of pipe a year to 70

by 2016, in the city and in Westchester. Even at that rate,

according to the

Times

analysis it would still take nearly three

decades for the utility to finish swapping out what regulators

have identified as the most leak-prone pipes.

Federal records show the New York City utilities have been

able to cut into their leak numbers as they have replaced

mains. National Grid, in particular, has made improvements.

Its rate of leaks per 100 miles of gas mains still ranks among

the highest in the country, but it is significantly better than

Con Edison’s.

New York has experienced problems with its aging underground pipe system