History Vision Safety and the environment Left Contact Home Safety and the environment Precautionary actions Control room The pumping and speed are carefully monitored and controlled 24 hours a day from the RAPL Control Room. In addition, various checks take place automatically, the status of which is continuously passed on to the control room by means of a telemetry system. Support with earthworks The number of incidents involving a pipeline is small. Experience shows that most accidents are caused by excavation work. This is the main reason that Excavators have a legal obligation to notify excavation work in advance; in the Netherlands at the KLIC (Cables and Pipelines Information Center), and in Belgium at the KLIM (Cables and Pipelines Information Hotline). If work is carried out in the vicinity of the RAPL pipeline, the pipeline will be localized and the location marked out before the ground work can take place. A RAPL employee will continue to monitor the works and provide the necessary instructions. Work close to the pipeline should only be performed manually with the shovel. Checking unreported groundworks Even though Excavators have a legal obligation to report their excavation work to the KLIC or KLIM system, the RAPL pipeline is checked weekly by helicopter and daily by car during other inspections with the main aim of detecting any ground work that is not known to be reported. . Important controls Sections of the RAPL pipeline equipment are visually checked daily by the operational department. The RAPL pipeline is cathodically protected to prevent corrosion. The technical service regularly checks the proper functioning of cathodic protection and adjusts it where necessary. The pipe is periodically checked for wall thickness by an intelligent pig run. Security systems Both the Europoort location and the booster station in Hoeven are equipped with "state-of-the-art" fire detection and security systems. More about safety and the environment Alarm plan © 2010 Rotterdam Antwerp Pijpleiding NV (RAPL) | disclaimer