Review of quantitative reliability methods for onshore oil and gas pipelines

Abstract

Onshore pipelines provide a low-risk alternative for shipping oil and gas in large quantities. Over the past two decades, it has become standard industry practice to use risk models as a part of pipeline maintenance programs as a tool to rank pipeline segments for repair, identify significant failure threats, and guide operational and integrity management decisions. In recent years, pipeline failures have garnered increased attention from the public resulting in a greater scrutiny of the design, construction, and maintenance practices used by pipeline operators. This provided an incentive for pipeline operators and regulators to embrace a more rigorous and effective risk assessment and management strategies than those common in the oil and gas industry. The objective of this chapter is to provide a review the state-of-the-art reliability methods applicable to onshore oil and gas pipelines. As a part of the review, common threats to pipeline integrity are discussed in the context of how they increase the demand and/or decrease the capacity of the pipeline to withstand applied loads. An overview of the probabilistic models, limit states and reliability methods employed for the assessment of pipeline failures is presented.