Abstract
Petroleum is transported across the water in barges and tankers, and on land, using pipelines, trucks, and trains. Natural gas is moved, mainly, by pipelines. The most common causes of tanker accidents are: fire/explosions, loading/offloading, structural damage, collision, and grounding. Pipeline accidents are due to: corrosion, third parties activities, mechanical damage, natural events, and operational error. Some of the most commonly applied preventive activities that reduce spills in waterborne transportation are: double-hulled tanker, navigation safety and radio communications equipment, tanker exclusion zone, etc. The pipeline condition can be recorded by using various nondestructive measurement techniques or by chemical analysis of fluid flows. Different types of sensors can be used to locate and determine the size of an anomaly in the pipeline geometry. Mayor methods for detecting leaks are measuring the hydrodynamic parameters or registering abnormal conditions in the fluid flow and detecting phenomena in the immediate vicinity of the pipeline.
TopBackground
Much of the oil and gas fields are located in countries far away from industrialized areas where the need for energy growing each day. This is why large quantities of hydrocarbons have been transported all over world by land and sea. Increased transport increases risks. However, it can be said that the last decade has been a reduction in accidents and incidents. What is the cause?
Whether transported by sea or by land safety and security of operations is key task. Pipelines and tankers are constructed and operated under strict regulations. During operations are applied national and international laws, conventions and regulations. New technologies that enhance transportation security are also implemented. Despite the safety problems that may occur, maritime oil shipping accidents have fallen steadily. The number of major oil spills (i.e. over 700 tons) decreased eightfold between the '70s and '00s. These encouraging results were made possible by the combined efforts of states, oil companies and ship owners. In fact, almost all the oil transported by sea arrives safely without a hitch (Dhillon, 2007).
In recent decades, oil transportation by pipelines has increased significantly. However, incidents of oil leakage have a decreasing trend in volume and in the number of leaks.
Testing and failures simulation is also one way to find out more about the effects on people and the environment. Therefore, efforts to study the heat impact of LNG thermal on the people intensified the last few years. The first thought that a man comes to mind when he saw the tanker of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its huge, mostly spherical tanks is: what a bomb! The gas is normally associated in the minds of the explosion. Almost every day in the newspaper can be read by the title of “gas bottle exploded” (and killed people, destroyed several apartment or house into ruins). If only 10 kilograms of liquid gas can cause the kind of damage that would happen to “blow up” the typical gas tanker with 125 000 cubic meters, or 50 million pounds of liquid gas?