An Oil Pipeline Catastrophic Failure: Accident Scenario Modelling and Emergency Response Development

Abstract

In spite of advanced technologies, inherent safety and safety management system, pipeline loss of containments and large-scale releases of hazardous substances are still common accidents leading to severe consequences for human health, environment and assets, both in Europe and in developing Countries. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the catastrophic failure of a pipeline connecting the port oil terminal with a downstream oil plant, in the North part of Italy, causing a major oil spill into a river and subsequently into the Genoa harbor (Italy). Firstly, the impact of atmospheric dispersion is evaluated then, assuming oil containment failure, the hydrodynamic dispersion of the spill into the sea is studied. By means of numerical methods, we performed a consequence-based assessment incorporating the effects, the hazardous distance and the reaction time scale, related to oil spill. Results are focused on the atmospheric dispersion of the “key” oil volatile fractions and the propagation in the sea of the medium-heavy fractions, both performed by Lagrangian simulations.