Decision Making Tool for Pipelines Risk Assessment with Multi-hazards (Corrosion and Geo-Hazard) Consideration

The oil & gas industry is vital to the economy of British Columbia (BC) and Canada. The BC Oil and Gas Commission (BCOGC) regulates more than 40 thousand km of pipelines that transport a variety of refined and unrefined products. The reliability of the pipelines is often compromised due to natural ageing and deterioration processes, coupled with exposure to natural hazards (e.g. earthquake, geotechnical failure, climate change) and human induced hazards (e.g. accidental hits, vandalism). Metal loss (e.g. due to corrosion) and geotechnical failure (loss of integrity due to geotechnical effect) accounts for over 50% of failure incidents. Understanding performance of the different pipelines and their interaction with the environment (as the failures can manifest as leaks and spills) is important to support decisions about risk mitigation, future development, investments and maintenance policies all of which are important so that pipeline operations can be made more efficient and reliable. The focus of the research work is in developing risk-based models for the assessment of the interactions between corrosion and seismic induced geotechnical damage and their effects on the mechanism of pipeline failure.

Faculty Supervisor:

Edouard Asselin

Student:

Hongxing Liang

Partner:

BC Oil and Gas Research and Innovation Society

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Energy

University:

Program: