PST’s Data and GIS Analyst James Eager walks us through one state’s pipeline safety track record each month. Click on the “State of Safety” tag at the bottom of the post to see all of James’s entries to date.
This month join us as we delve into gas distribution and transmission pipeline incident data in the state of California.
In California, the most-frequent perpetrator (operator) is none-other-than PG&E (responsible for over 60% of CA gas pipeline incidents!). Take a look at the data below and see how PG&E compares to the rest of the state of California in regards to gas pipeline incidents.
Incident Analysis – (All of California)
Quick Facts
In the past 11 years:
- 228 total gas pipeline incidents
- 130 significant incidents
- 23 incidents ending in injury and/or fatality with:
- 89 total injuries and
- 20 total deaths
- 91 incidents resulting in fire and/or explosion
- 2,221 total members of the public evacuated
- 1,186,861 Thousand Cubic Feet (mscf) of gas released as a result of incidents


Operator Analysis
Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) operate 50,012 miles of pipeline in California. Over the past 11 years, PG&E were responsible for 138 of the 228 incidents in California (60.5%).
Operator | Gas Pipeline Miles | Total | Rate | Total | Rate | Total | Rate | Total | Rate |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC CO | 50,012.83 | 138 | 2.76 | 92 | 1.84 | 847.15 | 16.94 | 1,104.05 | 22.08 |
SAN DIEGO GAS & ELECTRIC CO | 8,454.00 | 10 | 1.18 | 1 | 0.12 | 4.41 | 0.52 | 2.14 | 0.25 |
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAS CO | 54,765.00 | 77 | 1.41 | 16 | 0.29 | 334.81 | 6.11 | 39.23 | 0.72 |
Rate is each total per 1,000 miles of pipeline. Operators with at least 2 incidents are shown. 3 Operators, totaling 87.4 miles and 3 incidents were filtered out for clarity.


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