Terminal and Transportation Risk Assessment for LNG Export in North America

This paper gives an overview of method development in quantitative risk analysis for marine terminals and transportation that have been applied to several of the planned LNG and LPG transportation projects in North America. The growth in natural gas production in North America has renewed interest in exporting natural gas, mostly in the form of LNG or LPG. However, this growth comes with transportation challenges as suppliers, and operators move products and equipment, to and from an expanding number of sites (many of them in remote locations). Maintenance of safety and security practices is increasingly important as operations become geographically dispersed and more diverse. Analyses of reliability and risk are potentially most valuable during the early stages of marine terminal projects in guiding the decision on siting, design, and operative risk controls to reduce the risk as low as reasonably practical in final development. An important development in quantitative risk analysis for marine transport is the ability to utilize "big data" resources like Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracking. Utilizing AIS data provides the best available picture of existing traffic in a waterway. Quantitative risk analysis applies historical data as the basis for estimating risk of future accidents. This paper gives examples of how to combine historical data and advanced failure mode modeling to better estimate risk for loss of containment from LNG and LPG carriers. Quantification of accidental release frequencies and consequences of a release are demonstrated in this paper. The risk level for gas terminals and transportation area expressed in terms of individual risk at the terminal and along the transportation route. Newly developed methods make it possible to show the risk along the sailing route, accounting for the variation in traffic and environmental parameters along the route. Understanding of the key drivers of risk is important for the decision-makers to establish adequate risk controls for new energy export projects.