Fifty years of European oil pipeline safety and environmental performance statistics (Concawe Review 31.1)

At the beginning of the 1970s, Concawe, then a young organisation less than ten years old, launched a new activity aimed at recording loss-of-containment incidents affecting European cross-country oil pipelines, including their consequences (environmental impact, fires, injuries and/or fatalities) and the underlying causes. This activity has now been sustained for the past 50 years with publication of the results in an annual report, from the first one published in 1972 and covering incidents recorded in 1971, to the latest edition covering incidents recorded up to 2020.

Over the years, the Performance of European cross-country oil pipelines report has become one of the most noted Concawe publications, used by pipeline operators, pipeline designers, regulators and industry actors in general to shed light on the risks and potential consequences associated with oil pipeline operations, and to support the learning of lessons from past incidents.