Digging safely around pipelines

Underground assets throughout the UK provide critical supply across the country for both domestic and industrial applications. With these pipelines often containing high-pressure, flammable substances, the protection of these assets is paramount – not only from a safety perspective, but also financially and reputationally.

LSBUD plays an important role in helping to protect the UK’s infrastructure, and now has complete coverage of all the major gas distribution networks (GDNs) across the UK. In numbers, this amounts to over 550 000 km of underground pipelines, all registered and mapped on LSBUD’s free-to-use service. This means that regardless of whether you’re a homeowner looking to do some digging in your garden or a civil engineer working on-site, anyone can gain accessible and accurate mapping information with just a few clicks.

In fact, according to our annual UK safe digging industry report, Digging up Britain 2024, over 3.92 million searches were conducted throughout 2023, with 3.4% of those searches coming directly from those working within the gas sector alone. Of course, these statistics sound impressive on paper, but what is its true impact and why is this so important?

The importance of data sharing

Each year, millions of excavation projects take place. This means that the second a spade, digger or excavator hits earth, there is a risk of hitting an asset. For the oil and gas sectors, this has huge consequences due to the volatile danger of their respective pipelines when struck. Sharing asset data can help prevent this. By doing so, asset owners can provide information to the digging community that may not have been as easily accessible.

From an energy company’s point of view, by joining a central portal, asset owners can better protect their pipes and cables, improving project planning and pre-excavation awareness whilst also benefitting from the ‘safety of the herd’ effect – the idea that asset owners stand to gain more by uniting together whilst keeping total control over their data. As a result, network operators not only benefit from having their assets fully mapped and available to anyone that needs them, but also provide that information to more people, faster. A win-win.

Putting it into practice

Perhaps the easiest way to highlight best practice is to pick a particular example.

Wales and West Utilities (WWU) is responsible for supplying a gas connection to 2.5 million homes and businesses across Wales and the South West of England via its 35 000 km of underground pipes. The business was concerned with addressing two challenges:

Minimising the chance of someone hitting one of its assets.

Improving its service to the 7.5 million who rely on its network.

However, doing this was proving a challenge for the small plant protection team, with the team of four receiving close to 25 000 mapping requests per year. Each request required manual review, taking up almost all the team’s time and with requests increasing month on month, WWU turned to LSBUD to help streamline their reporting process.

After signing up to a central, collaborative portal, WWU witnessed huge improvements. LSBUD worked closely with the organisation to create an automated mapping request system, reducing the need for manual reviews. The system was implemented, helping save the plant protection team valuable time by providing automatic responses to any enquiry deemed ‘low risk’ within just two minutes, accounting for the vast majority of cases. This enabled the team to better serve those enquiries deemed higher risk, whilst improving the safety of its network through other means that previously the team had limited time to address.

As a result, LSBUD has also helped the team accommodate more enquiries, without sacrificing safety. In fact, from 2018 - 2023, the average number of searches per month has increased from around 2050 to 52 700 (over 25 times greater), now accounting for over 630 000 enquiries a year. The proportion of those flagged as high-risk has also increased thanks to the new system’s risk assessment algorithm, now accounting for 10% of all enquiries. This helps the team prioritise those enquiries that matter most.

WWU has also seen a reduction in its annual incidents. In 2018, there were 1553 damages across the entire network, a figure that had been rising since it was first tracked in 2012. By 2023, the total damages recorded had dropped to 1228, the lowest it’s been since its records began. By signing up to a central portal and sharing its data with the rest of the industry and digging community, WWU has experienced huge gains that would not have been possible otherwise. How many gas strikes still occur in the UK?

Inevitably, despite the gas sector’s uptake in registering its assets, gas strikes still occur. This is often due to people failing to follow best practice and search before excavating. However, whilst we have an understanding of exactly how many people conduct a search before commencing work, it’s hard to pinpoint how many do not.

The industry has long quoted that approximately 4 million excavation projects take place each year. However, this figure was first used in 2015. Given all the changes since then, it is highly likely to be out of date. Indeed, LSBUD received over 3.92 million searches in the last year alone, meaning it is highly unlikely that 98% of digging work is preceded by a search.

As a result, we currently do not know the proportion of people who search before digging. However, when it comes to gas-related incidents over a year, we now have a better understanding.

Historically, the HSE has been unable to provide data on gas-related incidents but in 2023, it did offer advice on which figures are most likely to account for accidents involving gas strikes. Under RIDDOR, a gas-related incident would be classified as a ‘dangerous occurrence’ (DO). In respect of incidents ‘involving pipeline strikes’ the most likely DO codes would be ‘damage to or failure of a pipeline or ancillary equipment’, ‘escape of flammable liquids and gases - sudden, unintentional and uncontrolled release’ and ‘accidental release or escape of substances liable to cause harm. When this is taken into account, it is fair to assume that in 2023, the UK experienced at least 909 gas-related incidents.

Of course, it is important to consider that these numbers only account for incidents that meet the above three criteria. As with any reporting, there will be some that are misreported, segmented incorrectly or not reported to the HSE at all. However, this figure gives both us and the industry an indication of just how many incidents still occur each year and paints a sobering picture of what still needs to be done.

Accurate reporting is key

To make further predictions and help protect the safe digging community beyond current levels, we need accurate data. Unfortunately, with asset owners and those doing the digging naturally less than forthcoming to report their damages, this has been – and will continue to be – a significant challenge. The reasons include:

Data is not recorded well enough.

Reporting is not conducted in the same way by asset owners.

Asset owners fear sharing data will have an impact on their reputation, both internally and externally.

Asset owners still fail to see the value in sharing data.

In summary

It should go without saying, working around assets, particularly those most dangerous when struck, requires careful planning, care and attention. Year after year we see more asset owners realising the key benefits of sharing data and in time, we hope to see complete coverage of all the UK’s assets to help keep the digging community as safe as possible. However, this will not be achieved without true collaboration from asset owners across all sectors. If everyone follows the basic rules of ‘subscribe, share and search’, we will continue to see the safe digging community grow, staying safer in the process.

 

 

Read the latest issue of World Pipelines magazine for pipeline news, project stories, industry insight and technical articles.

World Pipelines’ February 2025 issue

The February 2025 issue of World Pipelines includes a keynote section on digitalisation, outlining how to confront cybersecurity challenges in pipeline operations. This issue also features a Q&A on inline inspection, a pipeline machinery focus, and technical articles on construction, flow measurement, weld inspection technology, remote operation, and systems and software.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/special-reports/12022025/digging-safely-around-pipelines/