Extensive pipeline location data resource: Integrating reported incidents, past environmental loadings, and potential geohazards for integrity evaluations in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

The U.S. Gulf of Mexico contains a complex network of existing, decommissioned, and abandoned oil and gas pipelines, which are susceptible to a number of stressors in the natural-engineered offshore system including corrosion, environmental hazards, and human error. The age of these structures, coupled with extreme weather events increasing in intensity and occurrence from climate change, have resulted in detrimental environmental and operational impacts such as hydrocarbon release events and pipeline damage. To support the evaluation of pipeline infrastructure integrity for reusability, remediation, and risk prevention, the U.S. Gulf of Mexico Pipeline and Reported Incident Datasets were developed and published. These datasets, in addition to supporting advanced analytics, were constructed to inform regulatory, industry, and research stakeholders. They encompass more than 490 attributes relating to structural information, incident reports, environmental loading statistics, seafloor factors, and potential geohazards, all of which have been spatially, and in some cases temporally matched to more than 89,000 oil and gas pipeline locations. Attributes were acquired or derived from publicly available, credible resources, and were processed using a combination of manual efforts and customized scripts, including big data processing using supercomputing resources. The resulting datasets comprise a spatial geodatabase, tabular files, and metadata. These datasets are publicly available through the Energy Data eXchange®, a curated online data and research library and laboratory developed by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory. This article describes the contents of the datasets, details the methods involved in processing and curation, and suggests application of the data to inform and mitigate risk associated with offshore pipeline infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico.

A curated data resource to support safe carbon dioxide transport-route planning.

Supporting the national target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by 2050, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) authorized investments into carbon capture and storage (CCS), highlighting the need for the safe and sustainable transport of carbon dioxide (CO2). Curated to support CO2 pipeline route planning optimization and assess existing energy transport corridors, the CCS Pipeline Route Planning Database is a compilation of 47 publicly available, authoritative geospatial data resources, spanning the contiguous U.S., and some including Alaska and Hawaii. Key considerations were identified following comprehensive literature review, which included state legislation, known pipeline stressors, and energy, environmental, and social justice (EJSJ) considerations. Data layers were sorted into relevant categories (i.e., natural hazards, boundaries) and assigned preliminary weights representing potential social, environmental, and economic costs associated with routing pipelines. Version one of the CCS Pipeline Route Planning Database, made available on the Energy Data eXchange® (EDX), contains categorized vector features representing protected areas, public and energy infrastructure, EJSJ factors, potential risks, federal and state regulations and legislation, and natural features, along with associated metadata. This paper provides details on individual layers, methods used to identify data needs, acquire, and process the disparate data, as well as planned enhancements to future versions of this database.

Composition and Origin of Surface Casing Fluids in a Major US Oil- and Gas-Producing Region.

Fluids leaked from oil and gas wells often originate from their surface casing─a steel pipe installed beneath the deepest underlying source of potable groundwater that serves as the final barrier around the well system. In this study, we analyze a regulatory dataset of surface casing geochemical samples collected from 2573 wells in northeastern Colorado─the only known publicly available dataset of its kind. Thermogenic gas was present in the surface casings of 96.2% of wells with gas samples. Regulatory records indicate that 73.3% of these wells were constructed to isolate the formation from which the gas originated with cement. This suggests that gas migration into the surface casing annulus predominantly occurs through compromised barriers (e.g., steel casings or cement seals), indicative of extensive integrity issues in the region. Water was collected from 22.6% of sampled surface casings. Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes were detected in 99.7% of surface casing water samples tested for these compounds, which may be due to the presence of leaked oil, natural gas condensate, or oil-based drilling mud. Our findings demonstrate the value of incorporating surface casing geochemical analysis in well integrity monitoring programs to identify integrity issues and focus leak mitigation efforts.