---
title: "Pipeline Registry Methodology"
description: "How World Monitor curates and attributes status for the world's oil and gas pipelines shown on the Energy Atlas."
---

## Scope

Release 1 launches with a curated registry of critical oil & gas pipelines, not a claim of global completeness:

- ~75 critical gas pipelines (Nord Stream 1/2, TurkStream, Yamal, Brotherhood/Soyuz, Power of Siberia, Qatar–UAE Dolphin, Medgaz, Langeled, Europipe I/II, Franpipe, etc.)
- ~75 critical oil pipelines (Druzhba N/S, CPC, ESPO, BTC, Trans-Alaska, Habshan–Fujairah, Keystone, Kirkuk–Ceyhan, Baku–Supsa, etc.)

Curation bias is toward pipelines with active geopolitical exposure, not theoretical global completeness. Expansion is a post-launch decision.

## Data sources

- **[Global Energy Monitor](https://globalenergymonitor.org) — Oil & Gas Pipeline Tracker** (CC-BY 4.0). Primary source for geometry, capacity, operator, country list.
- **ENTSOG Transparency Platform** (public API) — EU gas pipeline nominations and sendout.
- **Operator technical documentation** — route schematics, capacity plates, force-majeure notices.
- **Regulator filings** — per-jurisdiction filings where applicable.

Every pipeline carries at least one primary source reference.

## Evidence schema (not conclusions)

We do not publish a bare `sanctions_blocked` or `political_cutoff` label. Public badges are derived server-side from an evidence bundle per pipeline:

```ts
{
  physicalState: 'flowing' | 'reduced' | 'offline' | 'unknown',
  physicalStateSource: 'ais-relay' | 'operator' | 'satellite' | 'press',
  operatorStatement: { text, url, date } | null,
  commercialState: 'under_contract' | 'expired' | 'suspended' | 'unknown',
  sanctionRefs: [{ authority, listId, date, url }, ...],
  lastEvidenceUpdate: ISO8601,
  classifierVersion: 'vN',
  classifierConfidence: 0..1
}
```

The visible `publicBadge` (`flowing | reduced | offline | disputed`) is a deterministic function with freshness weights. When a pipeline reopens or a sanctions list changes, the evidence fields update and the badge re-derives automatically. We ship the evidence; the badge is a convenience view of it.

## How public badges move

Any transition that flips a public status writes an append-only entry to the public revision log at [`/corrections`](/corrections). Each entry records:

- `{ assetId, fieldChanged, previousValue, newValue, trigger, sourcesUsed[], classifierVersion }`

No human review queue gates the transition — quality comes from the tiered evidence threshold + an LLM second-pass sanity check + auto-decay of stale evidence. The classifier's version string ships with every public badge so scientific reproducibility is possible.

## Freshness SLA

- Pipeline registry fields (geometry, operator, capacity): 35 days
- Pipeline public badge (derived state): 24 hours; auto-decay to `stale` at 48 h and excluded from "active disruptions" counts after 7 days

## Known limits

- Geometry is simplified (not engineering-grade routing). Do not use for field operations.
- Flow direction is advertised but not always calibrated to metered reality; relative state (flowing / reduced / offline) is more reliable than absolute mb/d.
- Sanction references are evidence, not legal interpretation. Every `sanctionRefs` entry cites the authority; the interpretation of whether a sanction "blocks" flow is made explicit in the evidence bundle, never implicit in a badge label.

## Attribution

Pipeline-registry data derived from [Global Energy Monitor](https://globalenergymonitor.org) (CC-BY 4.0), with additional operator and regulator material incorporated under fair-use for news reporting.

## Corrections

See the public revision log at [`/corrections`](/corrections). Spot a wrong
status? Open a GitHub issue or email the address in the atlas footer — we
update on the next classifier pass, typically within 6 hours.
