Abstract

To study the vulnerability of the natural gas pipeline infrastructure in a region of Argentina, the characterization of gas pipelines from the province of Córdoba is carried out in this work. For this purpose, parameters and value intervals that delimit the vulnerability assessment are defined. The following risk issues associated with pipelines are taken into account: a) third-party damage, b) external corrosion, and c) operation conditions that differ from those defined in the pipeline design.The first part of this work presents a survey of main data from the existing gas pipeline network of the province of Córdoba and also of new pipelines that are to be constructed by the government of Córdoba during the triennium 2017-2019. The second part deals with the qualitative risk assessment of the pipeline network under analysis, using the survey data. The proposed qualitative risk assessment determines the probability and the consequences of events that likely occur in the network. The qualitative methodology uses indexes to compare the relative risk of different sections of the network and consequently, pipeline sections that require vulnerability assessments can be determined.

Abstract

Abstract

A quantitative risk analysis is presented for a gas pipeline system in the province of Córdoba, Argentina. This is a part of a project on the vulnerability of infrastructure and physical environment associated with the storage and transport of combustible fluids. The developed model considers the identification of threats to the integrity of the pipelines, an estimate of the probabilities of failure of the identified threats, an estimate of the consequences of a failure, the determination and evaluation of the quantitative risk according to acceptance criteria, and the adoption of risk mitigation and control measures. For this study, the main data from the existing backbone network and the recently built gas pipelines in the province of Córdoba are used. This is complemented with a survey of the constructions near the route of the sections under study, as well as the crossings of roads and watercourses, based on available satellite images. The work is focused on establishing the individual and social quantitative risk levels of the gas pipelines with the highest qualitative risk level, already defined by previous work. Finally, and in the necessary cases, the adoption of mitigation measures is considered to adjust the risk levels to the international acceptance criteria.