Development of a Probabilistic Pipeline Risk Assessment Software for Mexico’s Oil State Company

Abstract

Pipeline risk assessment has been a major concern for Mexico’s Oil Sate Company (PEMEX) for the last couple of decades. During this period of time, isolated efforts from the different subsidiary bodies (upstream, midstream, and downstream) have been made regarding this matter, including the implementation of powerful software tools. However, due to several factors, none of these has provided an optimum solution for the company until now as they do not serve specific needs from PEMEX according to the country’s social and geographical environments. Besides that, a different software tool has been used by each subsidiary body, generating variations in practice and dissimilar criteria when assessing risk. A project sponsored by the Ministry of Energy in Mexico and the National Council of Science and Technology seeks to address these issues by developing a unique and customized software solution for pipeline risk assessment in PEMEX. This paper presents the progress made so far regarding the development of this tool.