Risk Assessment for Small Diameter Piping for Liquid Pipeline Facilities

Abstract

The Enbridge Liquids Pipeline system is comprised of a large number of facilities including storage terminals, pump stations, injection sites, and delivery sites. Given the vast amount of small diameter piping (SDP) within company Pipeline facilities, SDP represents a significant portion of total facility integrity risk. An event such as equipment failure or product release can cause significant business impacts, and adverse consequences to the environment and/or safety of operations personnel. A quantitative risk based approach is required in order to establish robust, risk-based plans and programs to maintain the integrity of these SDP sections. Small diameter piping lengths are relatively short. Consequently, it is impractical to use SDP length as a unit of likelihood and risk measure. Instead, the preferred methodology is to determine the total number of assemblies for each type of SDP. In support of this approach, an inventory of SDP sections throughout the system has been gathered. For illustrative purposes, an example of a small diameter section would be a pressure transmitter branch connection. The isolatable section that would be risk assessed would start from the surface of the main station piping connection and continue up to the transmitter. This paper presents the framework for likelihood and consequence assessment of SDP based on the system description above. This framework quantitatively estimates the risk of SDP failure and risk-ranks SDP sections in support of implementing and establishing a system wide Risk Based Inspection and Maintenance program for SDP.