Assessing risk on a pipeline system can be determined by assessing the likelihood or probability of a failure event occurring, and the consequences resulting from that failure event.

There are many risk assessment methods currently being used within the Pipeline Industry including HAZOP, Fault Tree Analysis, Scenario Based, and Indexing Methods. Each method has certain advantages and disadvantages over the other depending upon the user's familiarity with risk assessment concepts, current legacy systems, degree of data integration, enterprise infrastructure, degree of subjectivity, and the accuracy of databases versus institutional memory.

Gulf Interstate Engineering can assist in determining the most appropriate and useable methodology for your pipeline system. Our staff can develop formal risk assessment protocols, organize available pipeline integrity data, and provide the expertise to assess the likelihood and consequence of potential failures. Many Operators may begin utilizing expert panels and a relative ranking of risk, where other mature programs may utilize a more formal empirical approach.

Gulf Interstate Engineering and our affiliates provide the following Risk Assessment services:

• Develop key risk factors to be considered for risk assessments
• Recommend risk assessment methodology / technique
• Develop a technical basis for the relative ranking of risk factors
• Develop a technical basis to assess potential impacts
• Provide Mapping and GIS services to assist in risk assessments
• Analyze and validate relative risk ranking results
• Prioritize pipeline segments based upon risk assessment
• Revalidate relative risk rankings base upon new assessment data