The development of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) offshore industryis viewed as a major improvement in the exploitation of the world'senergy resources. Most energy analysts agree that significant increasesin Natural Gas (NG) demand is expected in the next decades due torelatively low prices and an important gas quantity to be exploredworldwide. In order to develop the use of this resource, manyinnovative offshore floating installations have been developed and arecurrently deployed all over the world. However, hazards linked to LNGand due to hydrocarbon releases are not always so well understood orcontrolled. Thus, in order to quantify and understand these risksassociated to LNG treatment or containment as well as theirconsequences, a number of different types of risk and safetyengineering techniques can be used at different stages of the project.The following will present specific analyses that have been performedon innovative LNG Offshore floating units to provide a qualitative andquantitative hazard assessment by predicting the consequences and thefrequencies of these hazards. The paper will first introduce the LNGoffshore industry outlining the different installations possibilities andthe associated hazards. Then, based on recent projects, it will detail therisk-based methodology applied to ensure the safety of such innovativeinstallations when no rules are able to frame fully the development ofthese projects. Finally, after having pointed out the ins and outs of riskstudies, a case study using most of the methods presented previouslywill be developed.
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