Development and application of oil-spill risk assessment model for offshore pipeline

Abstract

To the potential oil-spill risk caused by offshore pipeline more attention has been paid after the Dalian oil spill incident from oil-pipeline explosion. Since then an issue about how to prevent and control the sudden oil-spill from the offshore pipeline has been raised. In this paper, we proposed an optimized model to analyze the main causes (probability) of spill and the consequence with the fuzzy comprehensive assessment model. Considering the complicated assessment process for oil-spill, the assessment factor system involving the spill probability and consequence was established based on the operative manual and statistic leakage/damage data of offshore pipeline in order to estimate the integrated spill risk score automatically. The evaluated factors of spill probability could be grouped into five aspects: corrosion, fatigue, national damage, third party, and operational fault; the consequence evaluated factors of spill included hazard of oil and impact-controlling capability. With some modifications based on experts’ opinions, each of the evaluated factors in our work was developed with a relative weight and evaluation criterion. A test example for an offshore pipeline in the Bohai waters was described to show how the model can be used for an actual case in more detail. By using the oil-spill risk assessment model, it is easy to determine the risk level associated with the ongoing activity and management level and hence to take the risk mitigation action immediately.