Typically, buried pipelines are designed for seismic wave propagation considering uni-directional ground motion. Between body waves and surface waves, surface waves induce higher ground strain due to lower propagation velocity than body waves. Most code practices suggest using an analytical formulation that ensures compatibility between the soil and pipe strain, meaning that the axial strain in the pipe is the same as the soil strain along the pipeline axis. The ground strain along the pipe axis reaches its maximum value when the pipeline is parallel to the ground motion particle and phase velocities of surface waves. This consideration is usually confined to uni-directional ground motion, which is often sufficient for linear structures like pipelines. However, a few recent studies have shown that the strain response and axial force of pipelines under bi-directional excitation could be 50–70% larger than those under uni-directional excitation. Therefore, the present study aims to estimate the response of buried steel pipelines under bi-directional seismic wave propagation through numerical modeling, considering soil-pipe interaction. A 3D finite element model has been developed in the finite element software ABAQUS, considering various slip conditions (friction) at the soil-pipe interface. The strain response of the pipeline under both uni-directional and bi-directional seismic ground motion has been analyzed for multiple earthquake ground motion data. Additionally, two conditions of pipeline orientation are considered: one where the major seismic ground motion is aligned parallel to the axis of the pipeline and another where it is perpendicular. The results from this numerical study have been compared with the analytical values currently used for the pipeline design.