Marine QRA of LNG Transport via an LNG Vessel

Requirements

A BMT customer was looking to build an LNG terminal in Shenzhen, China for transporting cargo from Shenzhen to Hong Kong via LNG vessels.

The proposed development would require the vessels to travel on a relatively busy and narrow water channel called Tonggu Channel.

We were commissioned by the customer to carry out a Marine QRA (MQRA) to assess the additional risk from the LNG tankers to the land population along the Tonggu channel. The result of the QRA study was expressed in the form of individual risk contours and societal risk F-N curves. 

Solutions

In order to calculate the individual risk and societal risk, the following steps were carried out:

1. Hazard Identification – the mode of collision, impact energy and thus the loss of containment scenarios have been identified;
2. Frequency Analysis – the collision frequencies of LNG tankers with other vessels were mapped out in an MTIA (Marine Traffic Impact Assessment), also carried out by BMT;
3. Population Analysis – the population along the Tonggu Channel (mainly the container terminal area) was collected through field visit as well as desktop research;
4. Consequence Analysis – the consequence was calculated using an effective modelling tool, SAFETI. By combining the above data with others such as meteorological data the total risk was calculated and summarised.

Outcome and benefits

BMT’s combined experience in hazard assessment and marine safety enabled the accurate identification of the relative risk of various transit routes.

The individual risk and societal risk results were benchmarked against international risk assessment standards. We concluded that the LNG transit route did not pose significant risk on the population near the Tonggu Channel.

Other BMT services provided for this development:

• MTIA