Analysis of Natech Risk for Pipelines: A Review

Abstract

Natural events, such as earthquakes and floods, can trigger accidents in oil and gas pipeline with potentially severe consequences to the population and to the environment. These conjoint technological and natural disasters are termed natech accidents. The present literature review focuses on the risk analysis state‐of‐the‐art of seismic and flood events that can impact oil and gas transmission pipelines. The research has focused on methodologies that take into account the characteristics of natech events: for instance, the characterization of the triggering natural hazard and the final accident scenarios, as well as fragility curves for the specific assessment of the potential consequences of natech accidents. The result of this research shows that the literature on seismic risk analysis offers the largest number of examples and methodologies, although most studies focused on structural damage aspects without considering the consequences of a potential loss of containment from the pipelines. Very little work was found on flood risk assessment of natech events in pipelines.