Geohazard Management Program

BGC has been implementing a Geohazard Management Program for oil and gas pipeline operators across North America since 2002. The core objectives of the program are to support a proactive, repeatable, and defensible approach to managing geohazards, such as river erosion and ground movements from landslides and seismicity.

Our program typically begins with generating a list of potential geotechnical and hydrotechnical hazard sites from a review of operational records and topographic and watercourse data. Ground inspections then follow to verify potential hazard sites and collect site-specific field data to support an estimation of the likelihood of pipeline exposure, impact and failure.  Cambio™, a web-based database, is used to house the geohazards inventory, an audit trail of all site inspections, and links to relevant technical reports and survey drawings, site observations, and recommendations with a due date.  To ensure that the operator’s resources are directed to the geohazard sites that need the most attention, each site in the inventory is managed at an intensity commensurate with the likelihood of exposure, impact, or failure.

BGC’s program has been designed to exceed regulatory requirements for managing geohazards along pipelines, and it integrates well with other pipeline integrity management programs such as corrosion and third party impact. To date, the program has been applied to approximately 230,000 individual hydrotechnical and geotechnical geohazard sites spanning over 400,000 km of operating pipelines in the mountains and plains of Canada and the United States.