A new approach to pipeline risk assessment and integrity management
- Imperial Oil Resources Ltd., Calgary, Alberta (Canada)
- Greenpipe Industries Limited, Calgary, Alberta (Canada)
The goal of pipeline integrity management is to reduce risks associated with pipeline failures to the lowest level possible within given budgetary constraints. A traditional method of deciding where to allocate resources most effectively begins with the assessment of risks for all pipelines within the system. The pipelines are then ranked in order of risk to decide which pipelines should be given attention first. This worst-first approach has many benefits but it requires a large quantity of accurate data to rank the pipelines in the correct order, and it does not readily reveal the integrity maintenance activities that are required first by the pipelines at the top of the list. A new approach is presented that focuses on prioritizing integrity management activities rather than ranking pipelines. This is more straightforward because it is only the activities that can be directly controlled by integrity managers. The new approach also involves a change in purpose. Instead of assessing risks to find the worst pipelines, the new approach helps integrity managers to design a well-balanced program with uniform system-wide integrity.
- OSTI ID:
- 427782
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9606127--; ISBN 0-7918-1767-9
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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