ARPEL organized a Workshop on Damages to Hydrocarbon Pipelines by Third Parties, intentional and unintentional, which was held October 22-23 in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

The workshop brought together operating companies in the region and technology solutions providers with the purpose of promoting global awareness of the issue and thus be able to raise the standards of response.

The event was supported by Transpetro as Platinum Sponsor, Atmos and The Sniffers as Gold Sponsors, Authentix, Morken Group and TerraDrone as Silver Sponsors, and Asel-Tech and Overpipe as Bronze Sponsors, in addition to the institutional support of ACP and SLOM.

The introductory session, where the situations of third-party damage in different countries in the region were presented, showed the diversity of the problem according to the country and the product transported: from unintentional damage to illegal taps, attacks and sabotage.

During two mornings, operating companies shared their experiences, good practices and lessons learned in the prevention, detection and awareness of third-party damage.

During the afternoons, different regional and international suppliers presented solutions, cases of application and possible developments.

In the framework of the workshop, the work developed by ARPEL Project Team for Illegal Taps was presented, and in particular the Guidelines for Repairing Illegal Taps, currently at the stage of completion.

The event was attended by Dr. César Quiroga, Ph.D., expert from the Texas A&M University, who made a presentation on "Interference between pipelines and other infrastructure: New paradigms to anticipate and eliminate risk situations."