In this episode of the Pipeliners Podcast, Russel Treat speaks with Brad Thomas of Heath Consultants about the evolution of natural gas leak detection technology and the operational realities of leak survey work. The conversation explores how the industry is moving from traditional combustible gas indicators toward advanced laser-based methane detection systems, along with the training and operational challenges that come with adopting new technologies.

Natural Gas Leak Detection Technology Show Notes, Links, and Insider Terms

• Heath Consultants – A company specializing in natural gas leak detection, locating, corrosion mitigation, and utility diagnostic technologies.
• PHMSA – The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal agency responsible for pipeline safety oversight and regulation.
• Southern Gas Association (SGA) – Industry organization representing natural gas operators and service providers across North America.
• Leak Survey – A required field activity where operators inspect pipeline infrastructure for natural gas leaks using detection instruments.
• Combustible Gas Indicator (CGI) – A handheld gas detection instrument used to detect combustible gases and measure gas concentration levels.
• LEL (Lower Explosive Limit) – The minimum concentration of gas in air capable of ignition when exposed to an ignition source.
• PPM (Parts Per Million) – A unit of concentration measurement used in highly sensitive methane detection applications.
• Remote Methane Leak Detector (RMLD) – A laser-based methane detection device capable of remotely detecting methane leaks from a distance.
• Advanced Mobile Leak Detection (AMLD) – Vehicle-mounted methane detection systems used to identify and map potential leaks over large geographic areas.
• Tunable Diode Laser (TDL) – A laser-based sensing technology used in advanced methane detection equipment.
• Operator Qualification (OQ) – A federally required process used to ensure pipeline personnel are trained and qualified to perform covered tasks.
• Gas Migration – The underground movement of natural gas through soil or subsurface pathways away from the source of a leak.
• American Petroleum Institute (API) – Trade association representing the oil and natural gas industry and developer of industry standards and recommended practices.
• Tinker Air Force Base – U.S. Air Force installation in Oklahoma referenced during Russel Treat’s story about large-scale gas leak investigations.
• B-52 Stratofortress – Long-range strategic bomber aircraft referenced during Russel Treat’s Air Force experience.
• Pointy End of the Spear – Common industry phrase referring to frontline operational personnel performing field work directly on infrastructure assets.

Natural Gas Leak Detection Technology Full Episode Transcript

Speaker: Welcome to the Pipeliners Podcast episode 440, sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute. Driving safety, environmental protection, and sustainability across the natural gas and oil industry through world class standards and safety programs.

Since its formation as a standard-setting organization in 1919, API has developed more than 800 standards to enhance industry operations worldwide. Find out more about API at api.org.

The Pipeliners Podcast, where professionals, bubba geeks, and industry insiders share their knowledge and experience about technology, projects, and pipeline operations.

And now your host, Russel Treat.

Russel Treat: Thanks for listening to the Pipeliners Podcast. I appreciate that you’re taking the time, and to show that appreciation, we give away a cool Yeti tumbler to one listener every episode.

This week, our winner is Jamie Hough with PHMSA. Congratulations, Jamie! Your Yeti is on its way.

To learn how you can win this prize, stick around until the end of the episode.

This week, we talked with Brad Thomas of Heath Consultants about natural gas leak detection technology.

Brad, welcome to the Pipeliners Podcast.

Brad Thomas: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

Russel Treat: So tell me a little bit about yourself. Who do you work for? What do you do? And how did you find yourself in that job?

Brad Thomas: I’m with Heath Consultants. Been with Heath for about 12 years now.

When I first started with Heath, I was a boots-on-the-ground walking gas leak surveyor in Baltimore, Maryland. We were doing contracting work for utilities.

Russel Treat: You don’t have, like, we’re doing an audio podcast, but I’m looking at you. You’ve got slacks and a sport coat, and you’ve kind of got that hipster haircut and semi-growth beard thing going. You don’t look like a guy working in boots and jeans out in the field.

Brad Thomas: Yeah. That’s what the hardhat was for. Cover all that up. The safety vest and all that.

But no, yeah, it was an experience, let’s just say.

Russel Treat: So how long did you do that job?

Brad Thomas: I did that for about a couple years. Then I managed multiple projects for Heath where we did contracting leak survey work in the Mid-Atlantic area.

Russel Treat: Okay, cool.

It’s so important for us in this business to actually do that work. We all need to spend some time working out of the truck. That’s where our business happens. That’s the front line. That’s the pointy end of the spear, right?

Brad Thomas: Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, in terms of leak detection and the leak survey side of things, with requirements that are put on by the state and the federal level, it’s a requirement to basically protect your assets and make sure they’re not leaking, just for safety precautions, but also for monetary reasons as well, to make sure you’re not losing gas.

It’s a niche industry. Even when I first started with Heath, beforehand I had no idea there were people out walking gas lines.

Russel Treat: Right, right.

Brad Thomas: You don’t know those kinds of things are going on unless you’re actually in the business.

Russel Treat: One of the interesting things about being a pipeliner is that for the public, in a lot of ways, we’re kind of out of sight, out of mind. They don’t think about how the gas gets to the burner on the stove in their house.

Brad Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

Russel Treat: Likewise, they have no idea all the things we do to operate the infrastructure.

Brad Thomas: Yeah. There’s a lot of moving pieces. Coming to these events like SGA, it’s an eye opener seeing how many different vendors are here and all the different departments.

Russel Treat: We’re sitting here at the Southern Gas Association Spring Conference. This conference is kind of focused on folks that work in the field.

I don’t know, probably 50 exhibitors, I’m going to guess, thereabouts, and all kinds of different things. This is just a little bitty subsection of all the things we do in pipelining, right?

Brad Thomas: Yeah. A little piece.

Russel Treat: What were you doing before you were with Heath?

Brad Thomas: I had just graduated from college, and I was actually studying to be a math and science teacher. I was filling some time because my wife got a job in Baltimore, Maryland, with Under Armour.

So I was just trying to find a job in between. Like I said, I had no idea this world existed. Here I am today.

Russel Treat: So started out as a public school math teacher graduate and then became a natural gas guy.

Brad Thomas: Yep. Yep.

Russel Treat: All right. So that raises a whole bunch of questions for me.

How has your education in teaching helped with your job?

Brad Thomas: Yeah, that’s a good question.

Obviously with Heath, we sell products that go out and find gas leaks that could be out there, as well as odorant testing and locating equipment. Anytime we sell a product, we have to go out and teach it to the gas utility or whoever’s using it.

I think that was a big opportunity, studying to be a math and science teacher and teaching kids, but now I’m teaching adults, so it’s not a lot different.

Russel Treat: No, it’s not. A lot of kids might be more interested in learning. I’m doing air quotes as I say that.

Well, look, let’s pivot here and talk a little bit about Heath and what you do there.

What’s your role at Heath?

Brad Thomas: So I’m the regional sales manager. I cover the sales side for Heath from the Northeast down to the Southeast.

Russel Treat: What is unique or new or going on in the whole domain of leak detection?

Brad Thomas: Right now, leak detection is kind of moving away from your standard FI units with the hydrogen flame gas bottles and pump-driven instruments to more laser-based leak detection devices.

That would be things like remote methane leak detectors, as well as advanced mobile leak detection.

Russel Treat: I know a fair amount about this because I try to stay current with all the PHMSA rules.

PHMSA had a rulemaking that almost made it across the finish line right before the new administration came in, and then it got pulled back. I fully expect it to get reintroduced, maybe a kinder and gentler LDAR rule.

One of the requirements was being able to detect methane at the level of 5 ppm.

There’s not a lot of tech out there that does that. Or has that changed in the last couple years?

Brad Thomas: Yeah. When you’re talking about LEL and percent gas, now you’re talking about parts per million, which is significantly low.

Honestly, I think it’s more of a fit-for-purpose situation based on the instrument you’re using.

For gas leak detection, when you’re going out there and trying to find where a leak may be, 5 ppm is probably a little bit more important because you need that sensitivity so that if gas is migrating from an underground pipe, you’re able to pick that up.

But then with combustible gas indicators, they do now have ppm capability down to 5 ppm.

Russel Treat: Well, everybody’s going to be striving for that.

Really the trick is, and I’m actually sitting here looking at your booth and all the cool gear you brought. Clearly several of those things are older sniffer-type instruments, but you have one that looks like a little camera.

That thing’s pretty cool. Tell us a little bit about that. Is that new in the Heath line?

Brad Thomas: Prior to that, we had what’s called an RMLD, a remote methane leak detector.

You looked a little bit like a Ghostbuster out there because it had a device that sat on your side and an umbilical cord that went up to a speed gun-looking thing.

We shrunk it down so it’s pretty small, and then we added a camera to it so you can physically see what you’re reading or where you’re shooting or aiming the laser.

That instrument can shoot up to 100 feet away. So if you have a gas leak where, for safety concerns, you need to reach from a distance, you’re able to detect a leak from that far away.

Russel Treat: I wish I’d had one of those back in 1982 when I was in the Air Force.

Long story. I’ll tell you that off mic.

No, actually I’ll tell it on mic because it kind of goes to where we’ve come from and where we’re going with technology.

I worked at Tinker Air Force Base when I was in the Air Force. Tinker had one building that was a quarter mile wide and seven-eighths of a mile long.

They would take a B-52 Stratofortress in one end, take it completely apart, X-ray everything, and then put it all back together.

They had all kinds of metalworking processes, as you would expect in aviation, and they had a whole gas infrastructure inside that building.

We had a leak and had to evacuate the building. About 15,000 people got 2 hours off work because we had to deal with this gas leak.

I ended up running a project where we sniffed all of the line in that building. It was over 3 miles of line inside that building.

Then we mitigated all the leaks. It was a big project. Saved the government a whole bunch of money.

But it sure would have been handy if I could have walked on the floor and pointed that laser at that line versus having to crawl through the ceiling and use a sniffer to find those leaks.

Brad Thomas: Yeah, yeah. We’ve seen a lot of efficiencies gained because you can remotely scan a wide area.

Or if it’s exposed pipe, like in your case, you don’t have to do the crawling. You can sit there and see what you’re actually aiming at as far as the pipe goes.

It basically sends out a tunable diode laser, and if there’s a leak, a portion of that light gets absorbed by the methane in the gas, and that’s how it’s able to detect it.

So yeah, it’s a pretty cool little instrument.

Russel Treat: It’s a pretty cool little instrument.

What do you think is going to be the big challenge for the industry as we move toward these new leak detection rules and tighter requirements where we’ve got to find and fix smaller and smaller leaks?

Brad Thomas: I think any time you introduce new technology, there’s a bit of a learning curve.

I would say the industry is very good at sticking with one specific tool because they’ve used it for a number of years and they’re comfortable with it.

There’s always that initial training period. I think it’s also trying to understand the new technology, what it’s good for, and maybe what it’s not good for.

There’s no one tool that’s going to do everything.

Russel Treat: No, there’s no such thing as a silver bullet.

I think you’re right. Any time you bring new technology out, certainly you’ve got to train people.

But the other thing you’ve got is you’ve got to reorient the organization around policies, procedures, processes, the care and feeding of the new technology, what it does, and maybe more importantly what it doesn’t do.

Knowing all those things takes time.

When you have hundreds and hundreds of hours using a particular tool, you get really familiar with that tool and really know how to use it.

It’s like trying to change somebody from a sword to a musket.

Brad Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

Russel Treat: They’ll say, “I’ll keep my sword, thank you.”

Brad Thomas: Exactly. Yeah.

You’re talking about operator qualifications and all that. It’s a process. Like I said, it’s just trying to familiarize people.

Russel Treat: So basically what you’re saying is the challenge is everybody’s going to come out with new tech to meet these standards, and then the challenge becomes operationalizing it and getting the value out of the new technology.

Brad Thomas: Absolutely. Yeah.

Russel Treat: That’s pretty handy for somebody who studied to be a teacher.

You’ll probably appreciate this being in a sales role. I had a guy I worked with in my first job out of the military and he used to say, “Selling ain’t telling. Asking is.”

I think that’s wrong. There’s a lot of truth in it, but I think it’s wrong.

I think selling ain’t telling. Teaching is teaching.

Brad Thomas: Yeah, absolutely.

If you don’t know how to use the tool properly, it’s kind of worthless.

Russel Treat: That’s true of anything, right? That’s true of a hammer.

There are lots of people who think they know how to use a hammer and do not know how to use a hammer.

Brad Thomas: Yeah. You’re right on there.

Russel Treat: Anyways, hey look, thanks for coming by and talking to me. Great to see you.

Hope you have a great show here at the SGA Spring Conference, and see you around the block.

Brad Thomas: All right. Appreciate it.

Russel Treat: I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of the Pipeliners Podcast and our conversation with Brad.

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