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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory
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To: Raymond Duray who wrote (12734)4/28/2004 8:38:15 AM
From: Elroy Jetson  Read Replies (1) of 110194
 
The Chevron-Texaco statement, not really a study, makes two claims:

1.) There has never been a fire when an LNG tanker has leaked. How wonderfully fortunate.

2.) Quest Consultants estimate that a leak of 25 cubic meters (a tiny fraction of an LNG tanker cargo) would take 37 minutes to burn from a 5 meter hole.

Having worked as a Chevron employee obtaining project approvals, I am inclined to believe these statements as far as they go. But you need to go a lot further to demonstrate safety in a populated environment.

While natural gas is lighter than air, LNG is distinctly heavier than air and disperses along the ground or water over a great distance before vaporizing. The initial volume and flow rate are the primary factors which determine the distance it travels. A total loss of containment for one LNG tanker would release a wave of LNG over an area of 20 to 30 square miles before vaporizing.

I worked for PG&E Gas Transmission one summer in college and saw and learned about the results of some LNG pipeline accidents along the main trunk-line from Canada through California. It's important to realize that automatic valves greatly limit the release of LNG from a damaged pipeline to an amount insignificant compared to that carried by a tanker.

In one case, a backhoe struck a buried LNG pipeline. The claw bit a 3/4" nick part way through the pipeline. The gas pressure created a nine foot long rip in the 1.75" thick steel pipeline. The backhoe landed on the operator 300 yards away.

In another case, a pipeline leak released LNG which flowed down the gentle slope of a farm field incinerating 64 PG&E pipeline workers, their equiptment and several farm buildings. There was absolutely nothing left of the trucks and heavy equipment, let alone the humans.

When I worked for Chevron, I was very successful because I saw an important part of my job was heading-off poorly conceived internal ideas before they became a reality. LNG terminals in populated areas is one of those.
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