The YPF Puerto Madero tower was the venue for a meeting of the Geotechnics Project Team (EPGEO), whose main objective was to exchange experiences, lessons learned and knowledge about the execution of civil and geotechnical works to face geohazards within the pipeline integrity management of companies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The workshop brought together experts from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Costa Rica.

During 2015 and 2016, the team worked on the development of the first guidelines on pipelines geotechnics, entitled "Guidelines for Monitoring and Inspection of Pipeline Integrity Management to Face Geohazards", which is available for ARPEL members at the following link: https://arpel.org/library/publication/464/

Land movements or landslides represent one of the major threats to the integrity of oil and gas pipelines, and may take place in any part of the pipeline route, including subfluvial crossings. These are very common in South and Central America, especially in the mountain range.

This year, the working group began to prepare a second version of the guidelines, the "Guidelines for Execution of Civil and Geotechnical Works in Pipeline Integrity Management to Face Geohazards", which were launched at the workshop held in YPF and which will be completed in 2018.

The next meeting of the EPGEO will be held July 27 in Lima, Peru.

ARPEL, through its Pipelines and Terminals Committee, is a regional pioneer in the comprehensive approach to this problem.