High Consequence Areas (HCAs) Assessment for Long-Distance Oil/Gas Pipeline

In recent years, with the development of oil/gas pipelines transmission, there have been over 60000km long-distance pipelines in China. Most of long-distance pipelines transmit gas or oil with high pressure and high rate of flow. And these pipes are often built in areas with adverse natural condition where many accidents occur and cause serious consequence. Therefore, in order to improve pipeline safety, HCAs recognition of long-distance oil/gas pipelines is a very important task. In this paper, impact factors system of HCAs of oil/gas pipelines is established on the basis of Expert Scoring Method of HCAs recognition. Three aspects, which are leaking media, damaged objects and control of consequence, are taken into consideration. According to the impact on consequence, weight is given to corresponding factor and assessment grade of each base event is established. the impact factor system can make HCAs recognition procedure rigorous and systematic and guarantee a reliable recognition, which is helpful to a reasonable allocation of resources and scientific decision -making of pipeline integrity.