In the last few weeks, I’ve been fortunate to have experienced interactions in rooms full of very smart people (irl and virtually). 

These ‘rooms full’ are from various capacities: the ME-038 Standards committee, two different pipeline design teams I’m advising, the APGA Research and Standards committee, a pipeline system operator I’m auditing, and several individuals who are in the process of signing up for the March cohort my AS2885 Pipeline Pathways training course.

If you’ve met me, you might have the sense that I favour asking questions over trying to answer them. I like being curious, and I thrive on conversations that go both ways: questions and answers from all participants.  I think back-and-forth discussions are the best.

In the last while, I’ve definitely been developing a list of more questions than answers in the AS2885 space.  These are questions, though, without a right/wrong, yes/no answer.  They are philosophical, grey, requiring judgement and a lot of ‘it depends’.  At least that’s how I’ve answered them in my mind. 

I’m not sure this blog/LinkedIn is the place to be answering them – mostly because I’m not sure the written word is fully reliable (AI anyone?). 

I’m contemplating a series of online ‘lunch n learn’ Q&A sessions to discuss these types of techno-strategic questions. I’m conscious that no one wants to give out free consulting services, and, we’d have to be careful about responsibility for answers (when there is so much grey). 

As an industry though, it feels like we’d benefit from a chance for curious people to have a community space for discussion … kind of like a mastermind group, I guess? 

So, my call to action here is not necessarily to answer the questions below here (though you can try if you want to!), but rather, would you be interested in monthly Q&A (‘series of queries’) type mastermind sessions, to tackle interesting questions like these?

Questions I have rattling around my to-do list, in no particular order:

• How is a 50% design review different to a Safety Management Study workshop?
• SFAIRP vs ALARP (that old chestnut).
• Do we need to write original reports anymore, if AI does a good job of summarizing the meeting transcript?
• How does this industry maintain high safety & reliability when the financial benefits are under so much pressure?
• How can the AS2885 series evolve to reflect ‘pipeline systems’ (networks) and storage-bottle pipelines instead of the legacy style of “point A to point B long skinny thin wall” type assets?
• How wide should a pipeline easement be?
• On our operating pipelines, should we give more attention to corrosion issues, or to third party interference issues?
• Why don’t we build pipelines that are 12mm thick, which virtually eliminates impact threats?
• What is actually required to meet the compaction over pipelines requirement?
• What is the damage mechanism that vibration causes to pipelines?