Blast Response of Soft-Skinned Shelters and Occupant Vulnerability

Pan American Energy LLC is an oil and gas exploration company with operations in South America.

In the past the Company Management had decided to develop in–house expertise in major accident risk analysis as part of its Risk Based Process Safety program.

This paper presents the risk analysis of a cold vent in an oilfield in Patagonia, Southern Argentina. The purpose of the study is to make recommendations about an exception request to allow emergency gas venting by design in oil and gas production gathering stations.

While some aspects of the analysis may be original, we feel that the main contribution of this paper lies in the lessons learned from a corporate point of view, beyond the technical issues.