Previously approved:

This TRB/NRC committee will provide a peer review of a proposed design for a comprehensive risk assessment of Alaska's oil and gas infrastructure. The risk assessment will include: 1) a one-time engineering-oriented appraisal of the condition of the infrastructure; 2) an identification, quantification, and evaluation of current and future significant risks from a systems-level perspective; and 3) a methodology by which mitigation and management options can be evaluated. In addition to the review, the committee will recommend improvements to the risk assessment design that would assist the state in achieving its goals (e.g., determination of appropriate scope to focus limited resources, a comparison of the feasibility of top-down and bottom-up approaches, and options for encouraging industry participation).

Requested new task:

This Phase II project will provide a framework and high-level guidance for assessing and managing system-wide risks to Alaska’s oil and gas infrastructure. While the ultimate aim is to assess and manage risks to production, health, and environment, the framework to be developed will consider options for a phased approach to address these three risk dimensions starting with the primary concern -- production risk (reliability). This project will define the most desirable characteristics of an effective risk assessment methodology, and provide the minimum technical requirements that such methodology needs to meet. It will also stress the importance of being able to adapt to different levels of data availability. The project will not recommend a specific method or give detailed guidance for how any of the appropriate methods should be carried out. Instead, the project will give Alaska sufficient guidance for assessing system-wide risks such that it can craft an effective RFP and evaluate methods that a contract team may propose.