PUC extends PG&E pipeline survey 6 weeks
Published 4:00 am, Friday, January 14, 2011
California regulators on Thursday extended by six weeks the deadline for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to conduct a thorough search of records used to set pressure limits in the company's natural gas pipelines.
The California Public Utilities Commission gave PG&E until March 15 to complete the search, which the commission's executive director ordered the utility to begin on Jan. 3. The initial deadline had been Feb. 1, but PG&E insisted that it needed more time.
The records search was triggered by the discovery, in December, that PG&E had inaccurate documents about the natural gas pipeline that exploded Sept. 9 in San Bruno.
The company's records identified the ruptured segment as a seamless pipe, but federal investigators found that it had a longitudinal seam that had been welded, in some areas, only on the outside of the pipe.
Under the commission's orders, once PG&E locates and verifies the documentation for each pipeline, the company must calculate the maximum pressure allowed in the line, basing the pressure on the line's weakest segment.