A realistic assessment of LNG hazards and consequences of release scenarios

This paper tries to summarize the main aspects that characterize the hot debate about the risks of the LNG industry, and in particular those of the import (regasification) terminals, which represent a very attractive energy entry points for the economies of the industrialized and developing countries in search of an alternative to petroleum. Unfortunately still a great divergence exists on the safety aspects between those who favour the new LNG plants and those who are scared by their impact: one of the most controversial point are the exclusion zones around such facilities in order to avoid that the consequences of an uncontrolled release can affect the people and the environment. This is often due to a poor understanding of the physical phenomena that may occur and to the intrinsic inaccuracies related to the model used for estimating such distances. Both intentional and accidental release scenarios considered in many studies are here presented and the main assumptions of the models used to analyse the fire and flammable vapour cloud dispersion phenomena are highlighted. The intent of the paper is to provide a better understanding of the potential and credible hazards in order to contribute to a correct management of the risk associated with LNG installations. 1