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RADD – Storage incident frequencies
Contents:
1.0 Scope and Definitions ........................................................... 1
1.1 Application ...................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Definitions ....................................................................................................... 1
1.2.1 Atmospheric Storage Tanks...................................................................................... 1
1.2.2 Refrigerated Storage Tank Designs ......................................................................... 2
1.2.3 Pressurised Storage Vessels .................................................................................... 3
1.2.4 Non-process Hydrocarbon Storage Offshore.......................................................... 3
1.2.5 Underground Storage Tanks..................................................................................... 4
2.0 Summary of Recommended Data ............................................ 4
2.1 Atmospheric Storage Tanks .......................................................................... 4
2.2 Refrigerated Storage Tanks ........................................................................... 5
2.3 Pressurised Storage Vessels......................................................................... 6
2.4 Oil Storage on FPSOs..................................................................................... 6
2.5 Non-process Hydrocarbon Storage Offshore .............................................. 6
2.6 Underground Storage Tanks ......................................................................... 7
3.0 Guidance on Use of Data ....................................................... 7
3.1 General validity ............................................................................................... 7
3.2 Uncertainties ................................................................................................... 7
4.0 Review of Data Sources ......................................................... 8
4.1 Atmospheric Storage Tanks .......................................................................... 8
4.1.1 Selection of Generic Value for Atmospheric Storage Tanks ................................. 8
4.1.2 Overfilling.................................................................................................................... 9
4.2 Refrigerated Storage Tanks ......................................................................... 10
4.2.1 Selection of Generic Value for Refrigerated Storage Tanks ................................ 10
4.3 Pressurised Storage Vessels....................................................................... 11
4.3.1 Accident Source Data .............................................................................................. 11
4.3.2 Selection of Generic Value for Pressurised Storage Vessels.............................. 12
4.4 Oil Storage on FPSOs................................................................................... 13
4.5 Non-process Hydrocarbon Storage Offshore ............................................ 13
4.5.1 Methanol.................................................................................................................... 14
4.5.2 Diesel......................................................................................................................... 14
5.0 Recommended Data Sources for Further Information ........... 15
6.0 References .......................................................................... 15
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Abbreviations:
API American Petroleum Institute
ASME American Society of Mechanical Engineers
ATK Aviation Turbine Kerosene
BG British Gas
BLEVE Boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion
DNV Det Norske Veritas
FPSO Floating Production, Storage and Offloading Unit
GRI Gas Research Institute
HSE Health & Safety Executive
IPO Interprovinciaal Overleg
LNG Liquefied Natural Gas
LPG Liquefied Petroleum Gas
MIC Methyl Isocyanate
OREDA Offshore Reliability Database
QRA Quantified Risk Assessment
SRD Safety and Reliability Directorate
WOAD World-wide Offshore Accident Databank
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1.2 Definitions
1.2.1 Atmospheric Storage Tanks
Atmospheric storage tanks contain liquids ambient pressure and at or near ambient
temperature. They are usually fabricated from mild steel on a concrete base,
surrounded by a low bund wall. They are designed to withstand an internal
pressure/vacuum of 0.07 bar. The main types are [1]:
• Fixed roof tanks. These have a vapour space between the liquid surface and the
tank roof. They require a vent for vapour at the top of the tank. They are sub-
divided by roof design:
− Domed roof – up to about 20 m diameter.
− Cone roof – up to about 76 m diameter.
• Floating roof tanks. These have a roof that floats on the liquid surface to reduce
vapour loss. The roof requires a seal around the edge against the tank walls. Types
of roof design include:
− Pan roof.
− Annular pontoon roof.
− Double-deck roof.
• Fixed plus internal floating roof tanks. These are a combination of both types.
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In Section 2.0 failures from the tank walls are considered. Strictly, failures of associated
equipment such as inlet/outlet valves, pipes within the bund and pressure relief valves
should be excluded. In practice, many studies include failures at these points because
available failure data often does not distinguish them clearly from failures of the tank
itself. However, when considering tank ruptures and roof fires, the distinction is not
important.
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A leak or rupture of the tank, releasing some or all of its contents, can be caused by
brittle failure of tank walls, welds or connected pipework due to use of inadequate
materials, combined with loading such as wind, earthquake or impact. Where there is
the potential for such loading – in particular, in seismically active zones – specialist
analysis of the failure likelihood should be sought.
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The frequency of a tank BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion) should be
calculated using fault tree analysis, taking account of adjacent fire sources capable of
causing this event. Previous such analysis indicates that a frequency in the range 10-7
to 10-5 per vessel year would be expected for a large storage vessel.
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3.2 Uncertainties
The sources of uncertainty in the estimated leak and fire frequencies are discussed in
Section 4.0 for the different tank types.
The uncertainty in the frequencies presented in Section 2.0 tends to be greatest for
catastrophic failures due to lack of failure experience. Furthermore, the applicability of
the failure modes in the historical events to modern tank designs may also be
inappropriate because of improvements in tank design.
The uncertainty in values for atmospheric storage tanks could be represented by a
range of at least a factor of 10 higher or lower. Estimates of leak frequencies for large
pressure vessels, for both the overall leak frequencies and the rupture frequencies,
range over 4 orders of magnitude.
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• Above the roof but inside the shell, if vapour leaks past the floating roof. In an open-
top tank, this is expected to produce a flash fire rather than an explosion, if ignited.
However, such explosions may occur in tanks with fixed plus internal floating roof.
• Outside the tank area, if vapour drifts into a confined space before ignition occurs.
However, this should be modelled in the risk analysis as a tank leak.
No previous estimate of explosion frequency is available for storage tanks. Most
reports of explosions are derived from press accounts (e.g. MHIDAS), which do not
identify the type of tank involved. They also refer to world-wide experience, for which
the tank population is not known.
LASTFIRE [4] gives no cases of explosions in 33,906 tank years for open-top floating-
roof tanks. Making the common assumption that this is equivalent to “0.7 explosions to
date”, the frequency is assumed to be 2 × 10-5 per tank year. This may be conservative,
as it is similar to the frequency for tanks with fixed plus internal floating roof estimated
below.
Technica [3] analysed 122 tank fires from MHIDAS, in which 2% were initiated by
explosions. A total of about 22% of these incidents were recorded as involving
explosions. It is not known how many of these were in fixed or floating roof tanks.
These would be included in the fire frequencies above.
DNV [7] analysed MHIDAS reports of fires on crude oil tanks, in which 19 out of 92 were
reported as explosions followed by fires. This suggests that as many as 20% of fires
may begin with explosion-like events. It is not known how many of these were in fixed
or floating roof tanks.
Failure experience for fires/explosions where there is definite information about the roof
type and ignition consequences indicate that in tanks without an internal floating roof,
all full surface fires began with explosions. In addition, there were 3 explosions that did
not result in fires in the tank. Based on the frequency of 9 × 10-5 per year adopted above
for full surface fires, this suggests an additional frequency of 2.5 × 10-5 per year for
explosions without fires.
In tanks with an internal floating roof, there has been one incident of a full-surface fire
with no report of any preceding explosion. However, this event has little practical
significance for risk analysis. There is insufficient information to give a ratio of fires
and explosions significantly different to that estimated above for open top floating roof
tanks.
4.1.2 Overfilling
The main causes of liquid spill onto the roof were roof fracture and overfill. The
LASTFIRE report suggests that 19% of all leaks outside of a storage tanks were caused
by overfilling. There are a large number of variables involved in the mechanism for
overfill. It is therefore recommended that to model overfill effectively would require
detailed analysis using fault tree techniques.
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None of the above analyses are superior in all respects. The BG estimate is based on
the most extensive engineering investigation of failure modes, but it appears to neglect
some failure modes (e.g. aircraft impacts) and is strongly influenced by judgement. The
estimate based on historical failure experience automatically includes all failure modes,
but some may not be applicable to modern tanks, and both the failure experience and
the tank exposure estimates may be inaccurate.
The values from the Second Canvey Report are between the BG and historical estimates
above. They also have the merit of having been used in a well-known public-domain
QRA. They are therefore adopted as cautious best estimates. The BG and historical
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Major accidents involving medium storage vessels listed by Lees [1] include:
• Leak from of LPG tank, Wealdstone, Middlesex, UK, 20 November 1980.
• Leak of MIC from tank, Bhopal, India, 3 December 1984. A 46 m3 refrigerated
stainless steel pressure vessel containing methyl isocyanate (MIC) suffered a
release through the relief valve. The release may have been due to entry of water
causing an exothermic reaction that increased the temperature and pressure until
the relief valve lifted. The cloud of toxic gas caused approximately 2000 fatalities
among nearby residents.
• Rupture of a CO2 tank, Worms, Germany, 21 November 1988.
• Rupture of an ammonia tank, Dakar, Senegal, March 1992, causing 41 fatalities.
Gould [15] lists 16 failures of chlorine tanks in the range 4 to 30 tonnes.
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The published estimate of rupture frequency of 2.7 × 10-8 by Sooby & Tolchard [18] is as
yet unsupported by any collection of failure data. It is a factor of 20 below that
proposed above, and is considered suitable for a sensitivity test.
Similar leak frequencies have been observed for process vessels in the onshore
process industry [22] and the offshore industry (OREDA and HSE). It is therefore
assumed that otherwise similar pressure vessels in different industries have
approximately the same leak frequencies.
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statistics reports (e.g. [30]) include numbers of fires/explosions, but do not provide any
information to distinguish process and non-process fires.
4.5.1 Methanol
In [29] methanol leaks may be included under several systems. Although leak size
distributions are included, there is insufficient leak experience to give smooth
distributions.
Calculating methanol leak frequencies is awkward because the systems in the HSE
database include both methanol and other fluids. For flow lines and manifolds, the
systems are dedicated to a single product, but the population data includes condensate
lines.
Therefore the frequency should use the total number of leaks. This assumes that the
frequencies are the same for methanol and condensate. For process systems, both
methanol and other lines are included in all systems. Therefore the frequency should
use only the methanol leaks, and leaks from the oil and gas lines should be included
under process leaks.
An alternative approach is to use generic equipment leak frequencies. For example, the
tank leak frequency could be based on the pressure vessel value of 1.5 × 10-4 per year.
In the HSE database, none of the 12 methanol leaks during 1992-97 were from methanol
tanks. Methanol leaks might occur due to over-filling of the tank, and a fault tree
analysis could be made of this, taking account of the filling frequency and the tank’s
high-level and high-pressure trips. A further contribution to the failure frequency might
arise from escalation of other events near to the tank. The deluge system should be
adequate to cover the whole tank evenly as well as the tank supports, to prevent
collapse of the tank in a fire.
The data presented in Table 2.5 is a “system” leak frequency combining a tank leak
frequency distribution and a pipe work leak. The total number of leaks from a methanol
system is taken from [31] and set at 1.3 × 10-2 per system year.
Using data from [29] the overall contribution from tank leaks is 2.6 × 10-3 per tank year.
The rupture frequency is 3.0 × 10-5 per yr and the remaining small, medium and large
tank leak frequencies are calculated based on a continuous leak frequency function.
The contribution from pipework, pumps and flanges is calculated by dividing the
remaining leak frequency (system - tank) between Small (75%), Medium (15%) and Large
(10%) releases.
4.5.2 Diesel
In [29] diesel leaks may be included under several systems. Although leak size
distributions are included, there is insufficient leak experience to give smooth
distributions.
Calculating diesel leak frequencies from these is awkward because the systems in the
HSE database include both diesel and other fluids. The HSE use the 31 leaks
categorised as “utilities, oil, diesel” and an exposure 1511 diesel utilities systems, to
give a frequency of 2.1 × 10-2 per system year. However, this omits diesel leaks from
other systems. An alternative approach would be to divide the total of 52 leaks by the
1511 diesel utilities systems, to give a frequency of 3.4 × 10-2 per system year.
An alternative approach is to use generic equipment leak frequencies. For example, the
tank leak frequency could be based on the pressure vessel value of 1.5 × 10-4 per year.
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In the HSE database, 5 of the 52 diesel leaks during 1992-97 were from tanks and one
was from a pressure vessel. Assuming that each of the diesel systems had one tank,
these 6 leaks in 1511 system-years would give a frequency of 4 × 10-3 per tank year.
The data presented in Table 2.6 have been calculated using a similar approach to that
used for methanol leaks. The total number of leaks from a diesel system is taken from
[31] and set at 3.4 × 10-2 per year. However, this frequency includes oil export and well
systems. Eliminating leaks involving these systems gives a system leak frequency of
3.0 × 10-2 per year.
Using data from [29] the overall contribution from tank leaks is 2.6 × 10-3 per tank year.
The rupture frequency is 3.0 × 10-5 per year and the remaining small, medium and large
tank leak frequencies are calculated based on a continuous leak frequency function.
The contribution from pipework, pumps and flanges is calculated by dividing the
remaining leak frequency (system - tank) between Small (75%), Medium (15%) and Large
(10%) releases.
6.0 References
The principal source references are shown in bold.
1. Lees, F.P. 1996. Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 2nd. ed., Oxford:
Butterworth-Heinemann.
2. BS EN 1473: 1997. Installation and equipment of liquefied natural gas – Design of
onshore installations.
3. Technica 1990. Atmospheric Storage Tank Study, Confidential Report for
Oil & Petrochem ical Industries Technical and Safety Com m ittee,
Singapore, Project No. C1998.
4. LASTFIRE 1997. Large Atmospheric Storage Tank Fires - A Joint Oil
Industry Project to Review the Fire Related Risks of Large Open-Top
Floating Roof Storage Tanks.
5. API 1998. Interim Study - Prevention and Suppression of Fires in Large
Aboveground Atmospheric Storage Tanks, Am erican Petroleum Institute
Publication 2021A.
6. DNV 1997. Fires and Explosions in Atmospheric Fixed Roof Storage Tanks, Confidential
Report for Oil Refineries Ltd, Project No. C8263.
7. DNV 1998. HAZOP Study and Risk Assessment of Venezia Refinery, Confidential
Report for AgipPetroli SpA, Project No. C383005.
8. HSE 1981. Canvey - A Second Report - An Investigation of Potential Hazards
from Operations in the Canvey Island/Thurrock Area 3 years After
Publication of the Canvey Report, Health & Safety Executive, London:
HMSO.
9. Rijnm ond Public Authority 1982. A Risk Analysis of Six Potentially
Hazardous Industrial Objects in the Rijnmond Area - A Pilot Study, (the
“COVO Study”), Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co.
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10. IPO 1994. Handleiding voor het opstellen en beoordelen van een extern
veiligheidsrapport, Interprovinciaal Overleg.
11. HSE 1978. Canvey – An Investigation of Potential Hazards from Operations in the Canvey
Island/Thurrock Area, Health & Safety Executive, London: HMSO.
12. British Gas 1979. Further Studies on the Integrity and Modes of Failure of Canvey Above
Ground Storage Tanks, British Gas Engineering Research Station Report ERS R1983.
13. British Gas 1981a. The Hazard of Rollover – Canvey Terminal Above Ground Storage
Tanks, British Gas Fundamental Studies Group Report FST 812.
14. British Gas 1981b. An Assessment of the Probability of Unintentionally Filling to the Roof
an Above Ground LNG Storage Tank at the Canvey Island Methane Terminal.
15. Gould, J. 1993. Fault Tree Analysis of the Catastrophic Failure of Bulk Chlorine Vessels,
AEA Technology, Report SRD/HSE/R603, London: HMSO.
16. ACDS 1991.
17. Blything, K.W. & Reeves, A.B. 1988. An Initial Prediction of the BLEVE Frequency of a
100 Tonne Butane Storage Vessel, SRD Report R488.
18. Sooby, W. & Tolchard, J.M. 1993. Estimation of Cold Failure Frequency of LPG
Tanks in Europe”, Conference on Risk & Safety Management in the Gas Industry, Hong
Kong.
19. HSE 2000. Offshore Hydrocarbon Releases Statistics 1999, Offshore
Technology Report OTO 1999 079, Health & Safety Executive, London:
HMSO.
20. Davenport, T.J. 1991. A Further Survey of Pressure Vessel Failures in the UK,
Reliability 91, London.
21. Smith, T.A. 1986. An Analysis of a 100 te Propane Storage Vesse”, UKAEA Safety and
Reliability Directorate Report SRD R314.
22. Arulanatham, D.C. & Lees, F.P. 1981. Some Data on the Reliability of Pressure
Equipment in the Chemical Plant Environment, Int. J. Pres. Ves & Piping 9 327-338.
23. Crossthwaite, P.J., Fitzpatrick, R.D. & Hurst, N.W. 1988. Risk Assessment for the
Siting of Developments near Liquefied Petroleum Gas Installations, IChemE Symp.
Ser. 110.
24. Pape, R.P. and Nussey, C. 1985. A Basic Approach for the Analysis of Risks From
Major Toxic Hazards, Assessment and Control of Major Hazards, EFCE event no. 322,
Manchester, UK, IChemE Symp. Ser. 93, 367-388.
25. Whittle, K. 1993. LPG Installation Design and General Risk Assessment
Methodology Employed by the Gas Standards Office, Conference on Risk & Safety
Management in the Gas Industry, Hong Kong, October.
26. Reeves, A.B., Minah, F.C. & Chow, V.H.K. 1997. Quantitative Risk Assessment
Methodology for LPG Installations, EMSD Symposium on Risk and Safety Management
in the Gas Industry, Hong Kong, March.
27. Selway, M. 1988, The Predicted BLEVE Frequency of a Selected 200 m3 Butane Sphere
on a Refinery Site, SRD Report R492.
28. W OAD. W orld Offshore Accident Database, DNV.
29. HSE (1997a): Offshore Hydrocarbon Release Statistics, 1997, Offshore
Technology Report OTO 97 950, Health & Safety Executive.
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30. HSE (1997b): Offshore Accident and Incident Statistics Report, 1997,
Offshore Technology Report OTO 97 951, Health & Safety Executive.
31. Spouge, J R 1999. A Guide to Quantitative Risk Assessment for Offshore
Installations, Publication No. 99/100, ISBN 1 870553 365, London: CMPT.
32. Det Norkse Veritas 2007. Accident statistics for floating offshore units on the UK
Continental Shelf 1980-2005, Research Report RR567, Health & Safety Executive.
33. Technica, 1990. Port Risks in Great Britain from Marine Transport of Dangerous
Substances in Bulk: A Risk Assessment, Report for The Health & Safety Executive,
Project No. C1216.
34. IMO, 1987. Casualty Statistics, Report of the Steering Group, Annexes 1 – 3 (Analyses of
Casualties to Tankers, 1972-1986), MSC 54/INf 6, 26.
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