Thieves Set Off Mexico Pipeline Blast: Could It Happen in US?

In the wake of an oil pipeline explosion in Mexico that killed 28 people and sent hundreds fleeing their homes after thieves tried to siphon crude oil, oil safety experts said a similar disaster is unlikely but could nevertheless happen in the United States.

They said that if thieves were determined to steal oil from a pipeline in the United States, it would be nearly impossible to stop them.

"Anything could happen. We have pipelines everywhere and no one is watching after them. And it's a tremendous amount of pipeline," Theo Theofanous, a professor of chemical and mechanical engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the director of the Center for Risk Studies and Safety, told AOL News today in a phone interview.

With more than 165,000 miles of pipeline in the United States, it could be difficult to prevent an incident such as the one in Mexico, where authorities say thieves -- likely members of one of the country's powerful drug cartels -- accidentally set off the deadly blast in an attempt to steal crude oil from a state-run pipeline.

In the small town of San Martin Texmelucan, where Sunday's blast occurred, some victims were burned alive, and residents reported seeing "rivers of fire" as the crude flowed down the city's streets, according to El Universal.

That kind of attack is unlikely to happen in the U.S., experts say, if only because the cartels that have been striking Mexico's pipelines are not operating north of the border, at least not with the same impunity.

"I don't think it's as likely that those types of groups or individuals exist in the United States," Dan Plume, a managing partner at WKM, an oil pipeline consultancy firm, told AOL News today.

But, he noted, "there's nothing that prevents someone from accessing a pipeline [in the United States] if they know what they're doing, especially if it's in a rural and unprotected area."

Pemex, the state-run oil company in Mexico whose pipeline was attacked, is increasingly the target of theft from Mexican drug cartels, which steal millions of the company's barrels each year.

Richard Kuprewicz, a pipeline expert and president of the energy consulting firm Accufacts, said pipelines in the United States are operating "many magnitudes of safety above those in Mexico" and are better regulated.

But Kuprewicz said there's no guarantee the system can't be breached by a crafty criminal. "It's not impossible," he said.

In the United States, experts say a far greater threat is posed by aging pipeline infrastructure and accidents. In September, for example, a pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif., just south of San Francisco, left eight people dead and 37 homes destroyed. The pipeline was 50 years old.

"Some of our housing is built right on top of oil pipelines," Theofanous said. "We need good inspections and maintenance programs. This is like a traffic accident. You try to eliminate them, but you know you're going to suffer a certain number of traffic accidents every year."