Application of Consequence Analysis in the Development of Emergency Response Plans for Accidental Events in Liquid Fuels Transport Pipelines

摘要

Pipelines are the world's most common operation for hazardous materials transportation due to its low cost. Oil and gas industry (upstream, mid-stream and downstream) concentrates the greatest amount of pipelines of the world, due to the fact that production fields are normally too far away from final users, export facilities or processing plants. The main concern regarding the operation of these systems is the events of loss of containment (LoC), which might take place for several reasons such as corrosion, external impacts, etc. Such events, despite their low occurrence frequency, could have severe consequences to surrounding populations, environment and assets of the operating company or any other company. The consequences of accidental events might be reduced by application of different protection layers (e.g., construction materials, alarms, shutdown valves). Emergency response corresponds to the last layer of protection, and its objective is to control, if possible, an accidental event, or to reduce its consequences in the case the event develops completely.