Billing Code: 4910-60-P
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration

AGENCY: Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, (PHMSA), DOT.

ACTION: Notice; issuance of advisory bulletin

SUMMARY: We are issuing this advisory bulletin to owners and operators of Hazardous Liquid and Natural Gas Pipelines located on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The bulletin reminds operators of the September 15th, 1998, deadline to mark the point on their OCS pipeline facilities where operating responsibility transfers from a production operator to a transportation operator.

ADDRESSES: This document can be viewed on our home page at: http://ops.dot.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Linda Daugherty, (202) 366-4577.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background:

We published a direct final rule amending the DOT pipeline safety regulations in 49 CFR Parts 191, 192, and 195 consistent with an MOU (62 FR 61692; November 19, 1997) establishing the boundaries that will be used to delineate the locations over which the Department of Transportation and the Department of the Interior will exercise their respective regulatory authority over pipelines located on the OCS. The direct final rule excluded from DOT regulations OCS pipelines upstream from the point where operating responsibility transfers from a producing operator to a transporting operator. Also, the rule required operators to durably mark the specific points at which operating responsibility transfers or, if it is not practicable to durably mark a transfer point, to depict the transfer point on a schematic maintained near the transfer point. The requirement applies only to OCS pipelines on which there is a transfer of operating responsibility from a producing operator to a transporting operator. Producer-operated OCS pipelines on which there is no transfer of operating responsibility on the OCS have not been affected.

II. Advisory Bulletin (ADB-98-4)

To: Owners and Operators of Hazardous Liquid and Natural Gas Pipelines

Subject: September 15, 1998, deadline to mark OCS pipeline facilities where operating responsibility transfers from a production operator to a transportation operator.

Purpose: We remind all operators of natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines located on the Outer Continental Shelf of the September 15, 1998, deadline to durably mark the specific points at which operating responsibility transfers from a producing operator to a transporting operator, or, if it is not practicable to durably mark this transfer point, to depict the transfer point on a schematic maintained near the transfer point.

Operators must meet all of the following criteria to be affected by this rule:

1. Operating responsibility must transfer from a producer to a transporter;
2. The transfer must take place on the Outer Continental Shelf; and
3. The producer must be upstream from the transporter.

Pipelines that do not meet these criteria continue to be subject to the provisions of 49 CFR Parts 192.1(b)(1) and 195.1(b)(5) that state these Parts do not apply upstream from the outlet flange of each facility where hydrocarbons are produced or where produced hydrocarbons are first separated, dehydrated, or otherwise processed, whichever facility is farther downstream. Any proposed amendments to these regulations will be initially announced through publication of the Department of Transportation Semi-Annual Regulatory Agenda in the Federal Register and afforded full public participation through subsequent publication in the Federal Register of a notice of proposed rulemaking and request for comments.

Issued in Washington, D.C. on ________________.

Richard B. Felder

Associate Administrator for Pipeline Safety