Bow tie to improve risk management of natural gas pipelines

The use of pipelines for natural gas transportation is continuously growing around the world. Pipeline accidents affecting the environment, people, assets, and company reputations have historically occurred as a result of failures in risk management. Bow Tie diagrams could provide a clear and resourceful risk management method for the safety and risk practitioner's toolkit. This article describes a case study using Bow Tie methodology to supply an analysis of the effectiveness of existing controls in pipelines and provide a better understanding, mainly to operators and the community, as to pipeline risks and their controls, by presenting a graphical interface. Thus, this article contributes to a better perception and understanding of pipeline risks and can encourage companies to use the main causes, preventive barriers, mitigation barriers, shortfalls, recommended actions, degradation factors and their safeguards as guidelines to construct Bow Tie diagrams for their pipelines in the safety management process. Additionally, the company could use the diagrams as a tool to communicate with the community about the risks and to show stakeholders that the risks are under control. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 37: 169–175, 2018