(162c) Managing Escalation Risks in Lng Terminals

Over the past decade, the global LNG industry has grown rapidly both in terms of liquefaction and regasification capacity. Seeing a great number of proposed and ongoing LNG projects around the world, one can easily conclude that the LNG industry will most probably keep on growing in the near future. In most LNG projects, a great attention is given to safety aspects partly due to strict regulations and negative public opinion. For this purpose, both qualitative and quantitative risk assessments are usually conducted based on the project phase, applicable standards and prevailing regulations. One of the biggest challenges encountered in most LNG risk analyses, is how to evaluate the escalation risks. This challenge of adequate evaluation of escalation risks is essential with regards to transparency and usability of the risk analyses. This paper aims to demonstrate the evaluation and management of internal and external escalation risks in LNG terminals. Understanding and managing the internal escalation risks is a demanding task for all LNG-terminals, but especially for Floating Storage and Regasification (FSRU) facilities. External escalation risks are, on the other hand, more relevant to discuss in case of onshore LNG facilities. A more refined object of this paper is to illustrate how to manage the escalation risks by help of case-specific examples from two ongoing LNG projects.