In recent years significant changes have taken place in the Mexican gas industry. Activities related to gas transmission, distribution and storage are no longer the exclusive privilege of PEMEX Gas & Petroquimica Basica (PGPB), a traditionally state-owned company. The first priority of PGPB is to ensure a safe, efficient and reliable pipeline network. Several projects have been established to guarantee a smooth transition from a monopoly to open market competition.
Among these projects is a pipeline risk assessment and management programme (RAMP), to provide feedback on all safety related conditions of PGPB’s pipeline facilities. This project is planned to have a permanent application within PGPB, although a risk acceptance criteria based upon experience gained through the different project stages has yet to be established. This paper provides an approach adopted to assessing risk in more than 13,000 kilometres of pipeline, regardless of the transported fluid. Risk management is considered to be the step following the risk factors evaluation. However, PGPB is aware of the importance of calculating realistic indexes, so that management policies may be defined according to a well known risk magnitude.
