Risk study on long-distance oil and gas pipelines engineering

Abstract

Accidents such as leakage, fire, and explosion have happened occasionally in the long-distance oil and gas pipelines engineering in these years. Those accidents have caused large casualties, wealth loss, and environment pollution. So it is necessary to study the risk of the pipeline engineering in order to better avoid accidents and minimize losses of the long-distance oil and gas pipelines engineering. Based on the system safety theory, experts’ advices, and survey data, a comprehensive risk analysis and assessment of oil and gas pipeline engineering was carried out in this paper. From humans, materials, environment, and management four aspects, 32 risk factors were identified and assessed by combining the possibility with the severity of those identified risks. The risk level of the oil and gas pipelines was divided into five degrades from low to high. The proposed method was then applied to a natural gas pipeline engineering to identify and assess the risk of each pipe of the selected long-distance natural gas pipeline engineering. As a result, the earthquakes, avalanches, tunnel construction, and third party liability were the higher risk factors, and the risk of the forth pipe was the highest and should strengthen the risk management. Finally, some suggestions were proposed to the safety and risk management of the oil and gas pipelines engineering. The risk assessment method was thus proved to be a powerful tool to the risk decision-making and management of the long-distance oil and gas pipelines.