What the Pipeline Spilled

Pipelines follow oil and gas, and so do their failures. Each state is shaded by the count of significant incidents filed there since 1986. Texas, sitting on the densest network of pipe in the country, out-fails every other state by nearly three to one - not because Texas pipe is worse, but because there is simply more of it to fail. The barrels tell the same geography harder: of the roughly 2,479 thousand net barrels lost across the span, the crude-oil corridor from the Gulf up through Kansas holds most of the stain.

Every state, in a table

State	Incidents	Barrels lost	Damage $M	Deaths
Texas TX	4,200	693,000	8,190	88
California CA	1,500	140,250	2,242.5	32
Oklahoma OK	1,250	192,500	2,350	26
Louisiana LA	1,180	188,210	2,259.7	25
Kansas KS	780	111,540	1,411.8	16
Illinois IL	700	73,150	1,095.5	15
Ohio OH	620	47,740	861.8	13
Pennsylvania PA	600	46,200	834	13
New York NY	540	32,670	693.9	11
Michigan MI	520	45,760	759.2	11
Indiana IN	470	43,945	702.7	10
Wyoming WY	460	68,310	848.7	10
New Mexico NM	450	66,825	830.2	9
Colorado CO	430	54,394	733.1	9
Missouri MO	420	34,650	598.5	9
Minnesota MN	390	42,900	624	8
New Jersey NJ	360	25,740	487.8	8
Georgia GA	350	23,100	462	7
Mississippi MS	345	45,540	600.3	7
Alabama AL	335	33,165	512.5	7
North Carolina NC	320	21,120	422.4	7
Washington WA	310	27,280	452.6	7
Kentucky KY	300	26,400	438	6
Arkansas AR	285	34,485	475.9	6
Tennessee TN	275	21,175	382.2	6
West Virginia WV	265	24,777	396.2	6
Virginia VA	255	16,830	336.6	5
Iowa IA	245	24,255	374.9	5
North Dakota ND	240	36,960	451.2	5
Wisconsin WI	235	18,095	326.6	5
Alaska AK	235	38,775	458.2	5
Montana MT	215	29,562	381.6	5
Florida FL	205	12,402	263.4	4
Arizona AZ	195	13,942	264.2	4
Nebraska NE	185	21,367	302.5	4
Utah UT	165	19,965	275.6	3
South Carolina SC	158	10,428	208.6	3
Oregon OR	148	10,582	200.5	3
Maryland MD	138	9,108	182.2	3
Massachusetts MA	128	7,744	164.5	3
Connecticut CT	108	6,534	138.8	2
Nevada NV	96	6,864	130.1	2
Idaho ID	88	7,744	128.5	2
South Dakota SD	82	9,020	131.2	2
Maine ME	58	3,828	76.6	1
New Hampshire NH	44	2,662	56.5	1
Delaware DE	40	2,640	52.8	1
Rhode Island RI	28	1,540	35	1
Hawaii HI	26	1,430	32.5	1
Vermont VT	20	1,210	25.7	0
District of Columbia DC	16	880	20	0

Ranked by net barrels lost - what was released and never recovered. The crude and NGL haulers own this ledger, and they should: they move the most liquid through the most pipe. Watch the bottom of the list instead. Two gas utilities sit there with zero barrels and the worst death tolls on the page, because gas does not spill - it finds a basement and waits for a spark. Bars share one scale; length is the comparison.

1. 01
   Plains All American Pipeline Crude

   412,000 bbl 720 incidents $610M damage 2 deaths
2. 02
   Enbridge (Lakehead System) Crude

   340,000 bbl 430 incidents $690M damage 1 death
3. 03
   Enterprise Products (Crude & NGL) HVL/NGL

   318,000 bbl 640 incidents $540M damage 3 deaths
4. 04
   Energy Transfer / Sunoco Pipeline Crude

   286,000 bbl 590 incidents $505M damage 4 deaths
5. 05
   Marathon Pipe Line Crude

   224,000 bbl 470 incidents $398M damage 2 deaths
6. 06
   Colonial Pipeline Refined

   206,000 bbl 300 incidents $455M damage 3 deaths
7. 07
   ExxonMobil Pipeline Crude

   178,000 bbl 360 incidents $405M damage 1 death
8. 08
   Magellan Pipeline Refined

   168,000 bbl 510 incidents $352M damage 1 death
9. 09
   Kinder Morgan (SFPP & CO2) Refined

   152,000 bbl 480 incidents $338M damage 2 deaths
10. 10
    Phillips 66 Pipeline Refined

    141,000 bbl 395 incidents $296M damage 2 deaths
11. 11
    Chevron Pipe Line Crude

    133,000 bbl 320 incidents $284M damage 1 death
12. 12
    ONEOK NGL Pipeline HVL/NGL

    126,000 bbl 300 incidents $240M damage 2 deaths
13. 13
    Shell Pipeline Crude

    121,000 bbl 280 incidents $258M damage 1 death
14. 14
    Buckeye Partners Refined

    118,000 bbl 340 incidents $262M damage 1 death
15. 15
    Pacific Gas & Electric Gas trans.

    no spill volume - gas system

    0 bbl 210 incidents $880M damage 10 deaths
16. 16
    Atmos Energy Gas dist.

    no spill volume - gas system

    0 bbl 340 incidents $410M damage 17 deaths

Barrels are net loss (released minus recovered). Operator totals span mergers and name changes. illustrative

Cross the two ledgers and they refuse to agree. The crude haulers that top the volume ranking sit along the floor of this chart: hundreds of thousands of barrels, one or two deaths each. The two gas utilities sit pinned to the left wall - zero barrels, ever, and 27 of the 53 deaths among these sixteen operators. A barrel count measures the mess. It does not measure the harm.

Liquid systems (crude, refined, HVL) Gas systems

Every operator, in a table

Operator	System	Barrels lost	Deaths	Injuries
Plains All American Pipeline	Liquid	412,000	2	9
Enbridge (Lakehead System)	Liquid	340,000	1	7
Enterprise Products (Crude & NGL)	Liquid	318,000	3	14
Energy Transfer / Sunoco Pipeline	Liquid	286,000	4	11
Marathon Pipe Line	Liquid	224,000	2	8
Colonial Pipeline	Liquid	206,000	3	5
ExxonMobil Pipeline	Liquid	178,000	1	6
Magellan Pipeline	Liquid	168,000	1	6
Kinder Morgan (SFPP & CO2)	Liquid	152,000	2	10
Phillips 66 Pipeline	Liquid	141,000	2	7
Chevron Pipe Line	Liquid	133,000	1	5
ONEOK NGL Pipeline	Liquid	126,000	2	9
Shell Pipeline	Liquid	121,000	1	4
Buckeye Partners	Liquid	118,000	1	8
Pacific Gas & Electric	Gas	0	10	58
Atmos Energy	Gas	0	17	71

The regulator counts in nested tiers, and the words are doing precise work. Significant is the wide net: a fire, a big enough spill, fifty thousand 1984 dollars of damage. Serious is the narrow one: a death or a hospitalization. Out of roughly seven hundred significant incidents a year, about one in fourteen hurts a person badly enough to count. Quote the big number as if it measured bodies and you inflate the toll fourteen-fold; quote only the deaths and you hide how often the line actually lets go. The page holds both numbers apart on purpose.

Significant incidents rose about 93% across the span, from roughly 360 a year to 696. Some of that is more pipe in the ground; a lot of it is a wider net - the 2002 and 2010 rule revisions, pinned on the chart, both changed what operators must report. The serious count, the line hugging the floor, barely moved in four decades. The system files more paperwork than it used to. It does not kill more people than it used to.

Significant incidents Serious (a death or a hospitalization)

Year-by-year, in a table

Year	Significant	Serious	Deaths	Barrels lost
1986	360	27	10	90,000
1987	375	30	13	101,585
1988	388	33	15	110,926
1989	399	35	15	116,278
1990	407	36	14	116,784
1991	411	37	11	112,666
1992	412	36	8	105,174
1993	412	35	6	96,308
1994	412	34	22	88,374
1995	412	32	6	83,472
1996	415	30	18	83,027
1997	421	29	11	87,471
1998	431	28	14	96,148
1999	443	28	15	107,463
2000	457	28	15	119,231
2001	472	30	13	129,168
2002	526	35	10	135,396
2003	539	37	7	136,863
2004	548	39	5	133,577
2005	553	42	5	126,602
2006	556	44	6	117,825
2007	556	46	9	109,532
2008	556	47	12	103,901
2009	556	48	14	102,521
2010	593	50	22	106,030
2011	597	50	14	113,983
2012	605	50	12	124,944
2013	616	49	9	136,807
2014	630	48	7	147,267
2015	645	47	5	154,330
2016	659	46	5	156,758
2017	672	46	7	154,345
2018	683	46	21	147,961
2019	690	46	13	139,361
2020	694	46	19	130,792
2021	695	47	15	124,494
2022	695	49	14	122,203
2023	695	51	11	124,762
2024	696	53	8	131,935

Put the four measures side by side and only one of them trends. Significant incidents climb steadily. Serious incidents drift inside a narrow band. Deaths spike and fall with single catastrophes - 1994, 2010, 2018, 2020 - and never find a direction. Barrels swing on the price and flow of crude. Anyone quoting one of these lines as if it were the other three is telling you a story the ledger does not.

696 incidents / yr in 2024

53 incidents / yr in 2024

8 people / yr in 2024

132k bbl / yr in 2024

Stack each decade of the ledger and split it by what the failing system carried. Two things move at once: every decade is bigger than the last, and the gas share grows inside it - from about 44% of incidents in the first decade to 61% in the most recent band. Part of that is real (an aging distribution network under growing cities), part is definitional (gathering lines only entered broad reporting in 2022). Either way, the modern pipeline incident is more likely to be a gas leak than an oil spill.

Gas systems (distribution, transmission, gathering, LNG) Liquid systems (crude, refined, HVL)

The decades, in a table

Decade	Gas incidents	Liquid incidents	Total	Deaths
1986-1995	1,755	2,233	3,988	120
1996-2005	2,306	2,499	4,805	113
2006-2015	3,134	2,776	5,910	110
2016-2024	3,773	2,406	6,179	113

Score each cargo three ways and the columns refuse to agree. Gas distribution leads on incidents and on deaths, yet registers not a single barrel - gas leaks and explodes, it does not pool. The volume ledger belongs to crude oil, which spills oceans and kills almost no one. Each bar is scaled to its own column's maximum; read down a column to rank the cargos, across a row to see one cargo's whole ledger.

Take each commodity's slice of the incident ledger and follow it to its slice of the death ledger. Gas distribution - the small pipes under streets and into basements - files about 32% of significant incidents and takes 64% of the deaths. Every liquid line falls: crude oil is a fifth of the incidents and a twentieth of the deaths. The pipe that reaches your house is the one that kills.

Gas systems Liquid systems

The shares, in a table

Commodity	System	Incidents	Share	Deaths	Share
Gas distribution	Gas	6,800	32%	300	64%
Crude oil	Liquid	4,600	22%	22	4.7%
Gas transmission	Gas	3,200	15%	95	20%
Refined products	Liquid	3,050	14%	18	3.8%
Highly volatile liquids / NGL	Liquid	2,600	12%	24	5.1%
Gas gathering	Gas	900	4.2%	8	1.7%
LNG facilities	Gas	180	0.8%	3	0.6%

Sort every liquid-system incident by how much it actually released and the ledger splits in two. Three out of four spills stay under fifty barrels - a patch of ground, a cleanup crew, a filing. But the 7.8% of incidents that top five hundred barrels carry 85% of everything ever spilled. The typical incident is a puddle. The typical barrel is lost in a flood.

The size classes, in a table

Size class	Spills	Share of spills	Barrels lost	Share of barrels
under 5 bbl	4,300	42%	8,600	0.3%
5 to 50 bbl	3,400	33%	61,000	2.5%
50 to 500 bbl	1,750	17%	297,000	12%
500 to 5,000 bbl	640	6.2%	1,020,000	41%
over 5,000 bbl	160	1.6%	1,092,593	44%

The backhoe gets the headlines; the rust gets the pipe. Corrosion and material or weld failure - metal quietly giving up - account for about 41% of significant incidents and an even larger cut of the volume. Excavation damage runs the other way: 14.5% of incidents but only 7.1% of the barrels, because a struck line is found in minutes while a corroded seam can bleed for days. The dominant pipeline hazard is not an accident. It is age.

Share of significant incidents Share of net barrels lost

The causes, in a table

Cause	Incidents	Share	Barrels lost	Share	Note
Material / weld / equipment failure	4,650	21.8%	720,000	24.4%	Bad pipe, seams, or fittings.
Corrosion	4,200	19.7%	690,000	23.4%	Internal & external metal loss - the slow killer of old steel.
Other / unknown	3,280	15.4%	470,000	15.9%	Miscellaneous or undetermined.
Excavation damage	3,100	14.5%	210,000	7.1%	A backhoe hits the line. Preventable.
Incorrect operation	2,400	11.3%	380,000	12.9%	Human error in operating the system.
Natural force damage	2,050	9.6%	300,000	10.2%	Earth movement, flooding, temperature.
Other outside force	1,650	7.7%	180,000	6.1%	Vehicles, fire, vandalism, third parties.