Aspects of risk analysis associated with major failures of fuel pipelines

This paper presents a methodology of risk assessment for hazards associated with transportation of dangerous substances in long pipelines. The proposed methodology comprises a sequence of analyses and calculations used to determine basic reasons of pipeline failures and their probable consequences, taking individual and societal risk into account. A specific feature of this methodology is a combination of qualitative (historical data analysis, conformance test and scoring system of hazard assessment) and quantitative techniques of pipeline safety assessment. This enables a detailed analysis of risk associated with selected hazard sources by means of quantitative techniques. On the ground of this methodology typical problems that usually pose serious threat and constitute part of risk analysis for long fuel pipelines are also presented. To verify above methodology, complete risk analysis was performed for the long distance fuel pipeline in Poland.