According to the 2013 Report Card, oil and gas pipelines of the United States of America are in poor condition. Pipelines are proved to be safer and more efficient than the other means of transportation of petroleum products. However, they have failed during their operation and sometimes their failures have caused catastrophic losses and serious injuries. Most of the pipelines are laid underground, thus their condition is very difficult to be evaluated. On the other hand, a comprehensive study of the previous works proves the lack of an integrated model on the failures of these pipelines. This paper aims to model the probability of failures based on the historical data on the incidents of oil and gas pipelines. After identification of the main sources of pipelines’ failures, historical data is used to build a Probabilistic Failures’ Bow-Tie Model for Oil and Gas Pipelines. The model will be able to recognize the potential failure sources of each pipeline and predict the probability of occurrence of the major hazards.

This content is only available via PDF.
You do not currently have access to this content.