30-04-01 The safety of Britain's gas pipes has become a cause for serious concern within the industry, and ministers have been warned of fears of another Railtrack-style crisis. The system is under such stress that there are lots of accidents waiting to happen, according to industry insiders.
Their concerns focus on:
-- a critical shortage of maintenance engineers;
-- the time taken to repair gas leaks;
-- increased use of sub-contractors;
-- the restructuring of Transco, the privatised monopoly which owns the gas pipes.

Transco, which runs the mains and feeder pipes to 20 mm homes and businesses, is 950 engineers short of the number needed to maintain the system and repair gas leaks. The number of leaks and the time taken to fix them has increased. In Yorkshire, for example, there were 150 "outstanding escapes" or confirmed leaks not fixed at the end of March, with the oldest outstanding job dating from November last year. Industry sources say the number of outstanding escapes has nearly doubled in London and Scotland in the last two years.
In all Transco's 12 regional distribution zones across the country, staff are working such long hours that the company is breaking the law on the maximum 48-hour week. Transco's own documents warn that if the health and safety executive were to check on the hours being worked it might take enforcement action. Staff on standby are having to work 15-hour shifts to repair leaks.
Transco has been trying to solve some of the problems by increasing the use of contractors. Nearly 60 % of its maintenance work is contracted out. But internal documents warn that questions over the competence of contractors need to be addressed. A letter from Transco shows that at least one of its major contractors, DCE, a large engineering contractor in East Anglia, has repeatedly failed to carry out work to the required statutory standards and has left a leak in a pipe after working on it.

The HSE is expected to have a special meeting in the next couple of weeks with the environment minister Lord Whitty and the employment minister Malcolm Wicks to discuss its review of safety and the problem of finding competent staff. Transco is in the process of restructuring to separate its assets from operations, and then maintenance from emergency work. This has fuelled fears that the business could be broken up later. Insiders in the gas industry worry that the proposals will create "another Railtrack" by fragmenting the network.
Investigations into two fatal explosions after gas leaks from old corroded pipes in Scotland -- at Larkhall in December 1999 and Dundee in October last year -- have also highlighted serious problems with the network. An interim HSE report on the Larkhall explosion, in which a family of four died, was passed to the procurator fiscal (Scotland's public prosecutor) last September, and he is expected to announce in the next few weeks whether to prosecute Transco directors for culpable homicide or criminal negligence.
One of the HSE inspectors investigating the Dundee incident used to work as a Transco engineer covering the area. The HSE has issued a statutory notice requiring Transco to replace all ductile iron pipes within 30 metres of buildings by the end of 2002, "because they may fail unpredictably through corrosion".

The HSE also wants Transco to speed up plans to replace the rest of its 62,000 miles of iron pipes, to renew them in 10 years instead of the 40 years the firm originally planned. A 20-year programme has now been agreed.
Transco is regulated by the industry watchdog Ofgem. Ofgem sets its prices, having negotiated with the company an amount for capital expenditure to invest in infrastructure. But Transco underspent by 23 % in 1997 and 19 % in 1998.
Ann Robinson, chair of the consumer watchdog Energywatch, said: "We expressed concern last year about Transco's capital underspend. We were worried about any possible impact on safety."
In another echo of Railtrack, reports after the Larkhall incident found that Transco did not have an accurate record of its assets. The company is still trawling through its data to establish the extent of the problem, and the HSE is investigating the state of Transco's records.

Transco made 1,000 engineers redundant four years ago as part of cost-saving measures. Its director of regulation, Chris Bolt, said the company had laid off staff because "the Ofgem price control envisaged efficiencies," but "we are not prejudicing our safety obligations in any way".
He did not recognise the figures" for staff shortages, but said there was a general problem with finding engineers for the utilities. "We are expecting increased recruitment." On gas escapes, he said: "The majority are internal to the home and are not our responsibility, although we have to make the first call." If leaks were found in locations where engineers judged there was no hazard, the company was allowed to deal with them "at an appropriate time", he said.
Ofgem said its role was to protect the interests of consumers by promoting competition. "Safety is paramount," a spokesperson said. "We require them [Transco] to invest efficiently and effectively. They underspent on capital but were signed off by the HSE, so we were happy." The HSE said: "The duty to ensure safety rests with the duty holder [Transco]. Our job is to monitor compliance with the law."