The Development of a Pipeline Blowdown Strategy Using a Decision and Risk Analysis Model

Providing safe working access to natural gas pipelines often involves removing gas from those portions of the pipeline affected by the activity. A number of means exist for performing this task, with varying impacts to the environment in terms of noise and air pollution and at various costs to the shippers of the gas. The paper briefly describes a number of ways in which the environmental impact can be minimised, and then places these within a Decision and Risk Analysis model in order to obtain the most cost effective strategy over a fifteen year period.