Page 33 - Pipeline Risk Management Manual Ideas, Techniques, and Resources

1/12 Risk: Theory and Application
Resource allocation-where and when to spend discre- Consequences considered-public safety only, environ-
tionary and/or mandated capital andor maintenance ment, cost of service interruption, employee safety, etc.
funds Facilities covered-pipe only, valves, fittings, pumps,
Design or mod& an operating discipline-reate an tanks, loading facilities, compressor stations, etc.
O&M plan consistent with risk management concepts Scoring-define scoring protocols, establish point
Regulatory compliance for risk assessment-if risk ranges (resolution)
assessment itself is mandated Direction of scale-higher points can indicate either
Regulatory compliance for all required activities- flags more safety or more risk
are raised to indicate potential noncompliances Point assignments-addition of points only, multiplica-
Regulatory compliance waivers-where risk-based justi- tions, conditionals (if X then Y), category weightings,
fications provide the basis to request waivers of specific independent variables, flat or multilevel structures
integrity assessment or maintenance activities Resolution issues-range of diameters, pressures, and
Project appmvals+ostlbenefit calculations, project products
prioritizations and justifications Defaults-philosophy of assigning values when little or
Preventive maintenance schedules-creating multiyear no information is available
integrity assessment plans or overall maintenance priori- Zone-ofinfluence distances-for what distance does a
ties and schedules piece of data provide evidence on adjacent lengths ofpipe
Due diligence-investigation and evaluation of assets Relative versus absolure4hoice of presentation format
that might be acquired, leased, abandoned, or sold, from a and possibly model approach
risk perspective Reporting-types and frequency of output and presenta-
Liability reduction-reduce the number, frequency, and tions needed
severity of failures, as well as the severity of failure
consequences, to lower current operating and indirect General beliefs
liability-related costs
Risk communications-present risk information to a In addition to basic assumptions regarding the risk assessment
number of different audiences with different interests and model, some philosophical beliefs underpin this entire book. It
levels of technical abilities is usell to state these clearly at this point, so the reader may be
4. Users-This might overlap the audience group: alerted to any possible differences from her own beliefs. These
Internal only are stated as beliefs rather than facts since they are arguable and
Technical staffonlwngineering, compliance, integrity, others might disagree to some extent:
and information technology (IT) departments
Managers-budget authorization, technical support, 0 Risk management techniques are fundamentally decision
operations support tools. Pipeline operators in particular will find most
Planning department-facility expansion, acquisitions, valuable a process that takes available information and
and operations assimilates it into some clear, simple results. Actions can
District-level supervisors-maintenance and operations then be based directly on those simple results.
Regulators-if regulators are shown the risk model or its 0 We must go through some complexity in order to achieve
results “intelligent simplification.” Many processes, originating
Other oversight-ity council, investment partners, from sometimes complex scientific principles, are “behind
insurance carrier, etc.-if access given in order to do the scenes” in a good risk assessment system. These must be
what-ifs, etc. well documented and available, but need not interfere with
Public presentations-public bearings for proposed the casual users of the methodology (everyone does not need
projects to understand the engine in order to benefit from use of the
5. Resources-Who and what is available to support the vehicle). Engineers will normally seek a rational basis
program? underpinning a system before they will accept it. Therefore,
Data-type, format, and quality of existing data the basis must be well documented.
Sofhvare-urrent environments’ suitability as residence In most cases, we are more interested in identifying locations
for risk model where a potential failure mechanism is more aggressive
Hardware-urrent communications and data manage- rather than predicting the length of time the mechanism must
ment systems be active before failure occurs.
Staff--availability of qualified people to design the A proper amount of modeling resolution is needed.
model and populate it with required data The model should be able to quantify the benefit of
Monq~-availability of funds to outsource data collec- any and all actions, from something as simple as “add
tion, database and model design, etc. 2 new ROW markers” all the way up to “reroute the entire
Industry-access to best industry practices, standards, pipeline.”
and knowledge Many variables impact pipeline risk. Among all possible
6. Designxhoices in model features, format, and capabili- variables, choices are required that yield a balance between a
ties: comprehensive model (one that covers all of the important
Scope stuff) and an unwieldy model (one with too many relatively
Failure causes considered-corrosion, sabotage, land unimportant details). Users should be allowed to determine
movements, third party, human error, etc. their own optimum level of complexity. Some will choose to