Feasibility Study on the Imperatives for the Simulation of Ammonia Release Management

Abstract

Ammonia is being exported through Bintulu Port via pipeline and loaded to the vessel (ship) using marine loading arm. Ammonia is toxic in nature and transferred at -33 oC. Marine loading arms are special equipment for loading and unloading liquid cargo from the wharf and the vessel with swivel joints, and supplemented by supporting structure, and other accessories. Loading arms have safety features such as that we can set up quick release mechanism, in which the loading arm will decouple from the manifold when there is an emergency, or the movement of vessel is out of range. Studies such as by United Kingdom (UK) Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on loading arm had provided the probabilities of failures, and the possible size of hole such as guillotine break or 0.1 cross sectional area of pipe. This information, with ammonia operational parameters such as internal and external pressure and ammonia liquid flow rate we can thus predict the amount of ammonia release. Combining with meteorological data information, local landscape conditions and utilizing ALOHA software, we are able to simulate ammonia dispersion and thus predicting the impact of toxicity of ammonia release on the population within the area. This paper is a feasibility study that use modelling approaches to manage ammonia leakage.