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   From: noreply@mixmin.net   
      
   Pipeline safety regulators on Monday assessed their largest fine ever   
   against the company responsible for leaking 1.1 million gallons of oil   
   into the Gulf off the coast of Louisiana in 2023. But the $9.6 million   
   fine isn’t likely to be a major burden for Third Coast to pay.   
      
   This single fine is close to the normal total of $8 million to $10   
   million in all fines that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety   
   Administration hands out each year. But Third Coast has a stake in some   
   1,900 miles of pipelines, and in September, the Houston-based company   
   announced that it had secured a nearly $1 billion loan.   
      
   Pipeline Safety Trust Executive Director Bill Caram said this spill   
   “resulted from a company-wide systemic failure, indicating the   
   operator’s fundamental inability to implement pipeline safety   
   regulations,” so the record fine is appropriate and welcome.   
      
   “However, even record fines often fail to be financially meaningful to   
   pipeline operators. The proposed fine represents less than 3% of Third   
   Coast Midstream’s estimated annual earnings,” Caram said. “True   
   deterrence requires penalties that make noncompliance more expensive   
   than compliance.”   
      
   The agency said Third Coast didn’t establish proper emergency   
   procedures, which is part of why the National Transportation Safety   
   Board found that operators failed to shut down the pipeline for nearly   
   13 hours after their gauges first hinted at a problem. PHMSA also said   
   the company didn’t adequately assess the risks or properly maintain the   
   18-inch Main Pass Oil Gathering pipeline.   
      
   The agency said the company “failed to perform new integrity analyses or   
   evaluations following changes in circumstances that identified new and   
   elevated risk factors” for the pipeline.   
      
   That echoed what the NTSB said in its final report in June, that “Third   
   Coast missed several opportunities to evaluate how geohazards may   
   threaten the integrity of their pipeline. Information widely available   
   within the industry suggested that land movement related to hurricane   
   activity was a threat to pipelines.”   
      
   The NTSB said the leak off the coast of Louisiana was the result of   
   underwater landslides, caused by hazards such as hurricanes, that Third   
   Coast, the pipeline owner, failed to address despite the threats being   
   well known in the industry.   
      
   A Third Coast spokesperson said the allegations were a shock because the   
   company “consistently meets or exceeds regulatory requirements across   
   our operations.”   
      
   “After constructive engagement with PHMSA over the last two years, we   
   were surprised to see aspects of the recent allegations that we believe   
   are inaccurate and exceed established precedent. We will address these   
   concerns with the agency moving forward,” the company spokesperson said.   
      
   The amount of oil spilled in this incident was far less than the 2010 BP   
   oil disaster, when 134 million gallons were released in the weeks   
   following an oil rig explosion, but it could have been much smaller if   
   workers in the Third Coast control room had acted more quickly, the NTSB   
   said.   
      
   https://www.ocregister.com/2026/01/05/us-gulf-pipeline-leak-fine/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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