Pipeline Safety: Standards Update-API RP 1170 and API RP 1171

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 192</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. PHMSA-2025-0120; Amdt. No. 192-141]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2137-AF88</RIN> <SUBJECT>Pipeline Safety: Standards Update—API RP 1170 and API RP 1171</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule (DFR); request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This DFR amends PHMSA's regulations to incorporate by reference the updated industry standards API RP 1170, Design and Operation of Solution-mined Salt Caverns Used for Natural Gas Storage, and API RP 1171, Functional Integrity of Natural Gas Storage in Depleted Hydrocarbon Reservoirs and Aquifer Reservoirs. These updated standards will maintain or improve public safety, prevent regulatory confusion, reduce compliance burdens on stakeholders, and satisfy a mandate in the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (NTTAA) of 1995. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The DFR is effective January 1, 2026, unless adverse comments are received by September 2, 2025. If adverse comments are received, notification will be published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> before the effective date either withdrawing the rule (in its entirety or portions thereof) or issuing a new final rule which responds to adverse comments. The incorporation by reference of certain material listed in this rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of January 1, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by the Docket Number PHMSA-2025-0120 using any of the following methods: <E T="03">E-Gov Web: https://www.regulations.gov.</E> This site allows the public to enter comments on any <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice issued by any agency. Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. <E T="03">Mail:</E> Docket Management System: U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001. <E T="03">Hand Delivery:</E> U.S. DOT Docket Management System: West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <E T="03">Fax:</E> 1-202-493-2251. For commenting instructions and additional information about commenting, see <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Alyssa Imam, Transportation Specialist, by phone at (202) 738-3850 or email at <E T="03">alyssa.imam@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. General Discussion</HD> Through this DFR, PHMSA is incorporating by reference updates to a pair of voluntary, consensus industry technical standards already incorporated by reference within the pipeline safety regulations (PSRs; 49 Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) part 192). Specifically, PHMSA is updating the referenced editions of each of American Petroleum Institute (API) Recommended Practice (RP) 1170, “Design and Operation of Solution-mined Salt Caverns Used for Natural Gas Storage” and API RP 1171, “Functional Integrity of Natural Gas Storage in Depleted Hydrocarbon Reservoirs and Aquifer Reservoirs.” <HD SOURCE="HD2">API Recommended Practice 1170, “Design and Operation of Solution-Mined Salt Caverns Used for Natural Gas Storage,” 2nd Edition, November 2022 (API RP 1170)</HD> This RP provides the functional recommendations for salt cavern facilities used for natural gas storage service and covers facility geomechanical assessments, cavern well design and drilling, risk management, solution mining techniques and operations, including monitoring and maintenance practices, site security and safety, procedures, training, and abandonment. This RP includes the cavern well system (wellhead, wellbore, and cavern) from the emergency shutdown (ESD) valve down to the cavern and facilities having significant impact to safety and integrity of the cavern system. This RP does not apply to caverns used for the storage of liquid or liquefied petroleum products, brine production, or waste disposal; hydrogen, or compressed air, nor to caverns which are mechanically mined, or depleted hydrocarbon or aquifer underground gas storage systems. Reference to the second edition of API RP 1170 will replace existing references within §§ 192.7 and 192.12 to API Recommended Practice 1170, “Design and Operation of Solution-mined Salt Caverns Used for Natural Gas Storage,” First edition, July 2015. <HD SOURCE="HD2">API Recommended Practice 1171, “Functional Integrity of Natural Gas Storage in Depleted Hydrocarbon Reservoirs and Aquifer Reservoirs,” 2nd Edition, November 2022 (API RP 1171)</HD> This RP outlines storage well, reservoir, and fluid management for functional integrity in design, construction, operation, monitoring, maintenance, and documentation practices. This standard applies to natural gas storage in depleted natural gas and oil reservoirs as well as aquifer reservoirs. Reference to the second edition of API RP 1171 will replace existing references within §§ 192.7 and 192.12 to API Recommended Practice 1171, “Functional Integrity of Natural Gas Storage in Depleted Hydrocarbon Reservoirs and Aquifer Reservoirs, First edition, September 2015. These updated standards will maintain or improve public safety, prevent regulatory confusion, and reduce compliance burdens on stakeholders. The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (NTTAA) of 1995 (15 United States Code (U.S.C.) 272 (note)) directs Federal agencies to “use technical standards developed by voluntary consensus standard bodies instead of government-developed technical standards,” “when practical and consistent with applicable laws.” Consistent with that mandate, PHMSA incorporates more than 80 industry standards by reference into the PSRs; however, many standards become outdated over time as new editions become available. By updating these standards, PHMSA ensures better alignment of the PSRs with the latest innovations in operational and management practices, materials, testing, and technological advancements; enhances compliance by avoiding conflict between different versions of the same industry standards; and facilitates safety-focused allocation of resources by pipeline operators. PHMSA technical experts have also evaluated the changes in the updated editions of API RPs 1170 and 1171 and determined that those updated standards will either maintain or enhance the protection of public safety. PHMSA further concludes that the direct final rule's updated standard is technically feasible, reasonable, cost-effective, and practicable because of its respective anticipated commercial and public safety benefits; and because the benefits better support PHMSA's safety priorities compared to alternatives, thereby justifying any associated compliance costs. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Availability of Materials to Interested Parties</HD> Pursuant to section 24 of the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011 (Pub. L. 112-90, 49 U.S.C. 60102(p), as amended), “the Secretary may not issue a regulation pursuant to this chapter that incorporates any documents or portions thereof unless the documents or portions thereof are made available to the public, free of charge.” On November 7, 2014, the Office of the Federal Register issued a final rule that revised 1 CFR 51.5 to require every Federal agency to “[d]iscuss, in the preamble of the proposed rule, the ways that the materials it proposes to incorporate by reference are reasonably available to interested parties or how it worked to make those materials reasonably available to interested parties” (79 FR 66267). PHMSA consequently has negotiated agreements to make viewable copies of the standards available to the public at no cost. API agreed to the public access requirements of the statutory mandate discussed above. The organization's mailing address and website is listed in 49 CFR part 192. The API standards incorporated in this final rule are available from the following website: <E T="03">https://publications.api.org/Default.aspx.</E> Additional information regarding standards availability can be found at <E T="03">https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/standards-rulemaking/pipeline/standards-incorporated-reference.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Commenting</HD> <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Please include the docket number PHMSA-2025-0120 at the beginning of your comments. If you submit your comments by mail, submit two copies. If you wish to receive confirmation that PHMSA received your comments, include a self-addressed stamped postcard. Internet users may submit comments at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <NOTE> <HD SOURCE="HED">Note:</HD> Comments are posted without changes or edits to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. There is a privacy statement published on <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> </NOTE> <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to inform its rulemaking process. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">https://www.dot.gov/privacy.</E> <E T="03">Confidential Business Information:</E> Confidential Business Information (CBI) is commercial or financial information that is both customarily and actually treated as private by its owner. Under the Freedom of I ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 28k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━