Assessing the risk of an LNG terminal
摘要
Public risks in LNG commerce are summarized. To analyze the risk of such accidents, the authors used a risk-analysis process which included the development of accident scenarios and their associated probabilities, quantification of public risks, and evaluation of public risks. A hypothetical LNG accident was mapped. The La Salle Terminal for receiving and vaporizing liquefied natural gas from Algeria would be built by the El Paso LNG Co. and its subsidiaries northwest of Port O'Connor on Matagorda Bay, between Galveston and Corpus Christi, Texas. To reach it, LNG carriers would enter the Matagorda ship channel from the Gulf of Mexico. As part of the authors' risk analysis, they studied the probability of a collision scenario in which one tank of an LNG carrier was ruptured so as to instantaneously release 19,400 cubic meters of LNG. A 10 m.p.h. east wind would move the resulting vapor cloud toward the town of Port O'Connor, where fatalities from possible ignition of the vapor cloud might exceed 400. But the probability of this specific episode is shown to be 2.71 x 10/sup -12/, and the expected fatalities per year among residents and visitors to Port O'Connor due to the proposed LNG facility is 1.7more » x 10/sup -5/. (MCW)« less