Risk management at the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project: A FEPs‐based approach

Abstract

Illinois Basin – Decatur Project (IBDP) evaluates risk as the potential for negative impact to five project values: health and safety, environment, financial, research, and industry stewardship. Goals include monitoring one million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) injected about 2,150 meters below the ground surface. Risk treatments address ways in which any project value is at risk: for example, monitoring is designed to narrow parameter uncertainties that are important for system control, research, and public assurance. This paper details the risk management approach undertaken by the IBDP. Although approaches taken by other geologic storage projects are not compared here, some aspects of this project's risk management approach are judged to have been more effective (comprehensiveness; contribution to early‐project organization), and some less effective (execution efficiency and information management). IBDP initially evaluated risk related to 123 Features, Events, and Processes (FEPs). Higher‐risk FEPs provided the basis for writing 88 scenarios, which are the critical entities whose associated risks are tracked and treated. Individuals are assigned to organize and to confirm the execution of risk treatments. Maintaining risk at acceptable levels is a key aspect of performance management. In concept, risk is re‐evaluated before significant new activities and decision points, and after significant new information is received. In practice, project workers are charged to maintain everyday awareness of risk levels in the scenarios already identified, and to be vigilant for the emergence of new risk‐bearing scenarios. Coordinating the activities of multiple organizations presents special risks and challenges. For IBDP, the first risk workshop was a central element in the project kickoff meeting, initiating a risk management process whose application has been a key aspect of project success. Integrated risk management has influenced activities within all IBDP partner organizations, shaped internal and external communications, and contributed to smooth operation of the project's physical components.