The fault current through the earth originated from a power line ground fault might cause arcing through the soil to an adjacent pipeline, which might bring about not only a catastrophic accident such as gas explosion and oil leakage but also a hazard to the safety of workers responsible for the maintenance and repair of the pipeline. In this paper we investigated the arcing phenomena through soil between a power line tower and a pipeline and outlined the standards for the separation distance of a buried pipeline adjacent to the power line tower.