Inherent safety assessment of alternative technologies for

LNG ships bunkering

Worldwide energy demand is predicted to grow by 28% between 2015

and 2040. Consequently, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are projected to
grow of about 0.6% on a yearly basis (US Energy Information
Administration, 2017) unless mitigation strategies are adopted. This scenario
is not compatible with the goal to limit global temperature increase below 2
ºC set by the Paris Agreement (United Nations, 2015).

Transport represents almost a quarter of Europe’s greenhouse gas

(GHG) emissions. Within this sector, shipping is responsible for about 13%
of EU’s GHG emissions and of 2.2% of global GHG emissions, as reported
by (European Environment Agency, 2015) and by the third International
Maritime Organization (IMO) GHG study (IMO, 2015a). Moreover, since
maritime activities are heavily dependent on diesel fuels, maritime
transportation is a major source of global emissions of sulfur (SOx) and
nitrogen oxides (NOx), and contributes up to 8% and 15% to the respective
overall emissions (Maragkogianni et al., 2016).

Considerable efforts were made by international authorities over

recent years to pursue the reduction of pollutant emissions, increasing energy
efficiency and shifting from conventional diesel fuels towards natural gas
and renewable energy sources. To achieve this goal, IMO has recently
revised Annex VI of MARPOL convention (MARPOL, 2006) introducing
tight emission limits for SOx, NOx and particulate matter (PM).
Requirements for fuels’ sulfur content and emissions abatement technologies
installed on seagoing vessels were also introduced.
 From an environmental perspective, the adoption of Liquefied Natural
Gas (LNG) as a ship fuel appears to be a viable solution to comply with the
stringent emission regulations. LNG should allow reducing emissions of
CO2 up to 20%, SOx up to 100%, NOx up to 90%, and PM up to 99% (IGU,
2015). Moreover, the favorable price conditions make natural gas a
sustainable alternative to traditional fuels.

Therefore, several studies dealt with the analysis of the environmental

benefits related to the adoption of LNG based technologies with respect to
conventional diesel fuels, in terms of emissions reduction in hybrid engines
(Kavli et al., 2017) or in the implementation of dual fuel engines (Stoumpos
et al., 2018). Lepisto € et al. (2016) performed the analysis of energy
efficiency and heat recovery through dynamic process simulation in LNG
fueled ships. Concerning economic aspects, Schinas and Butler (2016)
provided strategies to promote the commercial aspects related to the spread
of LNG technologies, also addressing their feasibility. Life cycle assessment,
with particular reference to the analysis of air emissions was developed
(Chatzinikolaou and Ventikos, 2015; Tagliaferri et al., 2017), allowing a
more detailed analysis of energetic, economic and environmental aspects.

However, due to the high flammability of LNG compared to

conventional fuels for diesel engines, safety aspects will become crucial for
the development of green shipping, based on LNG technologies. Hence,
several works investigated safety issues involving LNG operations
(Alderman, 2005; Lee et al., 2015), safety exclusion zones for LNG
bunkering sites (Jeong et al., 2018), fire risk on board LNG fueled vessels
(Jeong et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2014); risk profiles of different LNG
bunkering operations performed in port areas were assessed in specific risk
studies carried out by DNV (Det Norske Veritas, 2012). However, a direct
comparison among safety issues posed by different fueling alternatives is not
present in the literature, and a comparative safety assessment addressing both
traditional diesel fuels (such as fuel oil or marine gasoil) and natural gas
fueling systems is still lacking.

The use of LNG in the marine sector is far from consolidated. Hence,
there is still a lack of harmonization in technical standards and regulations
concerning the safety of LNG maritime infrastructures, along with limited
information about safety performance of such installations. A screening tool
based on inherent safety principles (Kletz and Amyotte, 2010) driving the
development of future projects would thus be crucial to support a safe and
sustainable introduction of LNG-based technologies in maritime
transportation. The main concept behind the inherent safety approach in
supporting preliminary process design is the aim to eliminate or radically
reduce hazards by a mindful choice among design alternatives. Inherent
safety philosophy is hinged on five fundamental principles (Kletz, 1978):
minimization of inventories, substitution of hazardous materials, attenuation
of process conditions, limitation of the effects and process simplification.
Although these principles can lead the decision process towards safer
options, assessment of alternatives and decision-making need to be based on
a specific metric (Jafari et al., 2018).

In the present study a tool for the quantitative assessment of the

inherent safety performance of alternative technologies was developed. The
tool aims at supporting decision-making in early process design of LNG
bunkering technologies, allowing a comparison to the safety performance of
diesel-fuel baseline technologies by the comparison of reference systems for
alternative bunkering technologies. The definition and assessment of a
specific set of inherent safety key performance indicators (KPIs) allowed
ranking the proposed LNG-based technologies for ship bunkering,
supporting the identification of the inherently safer solutions and the
identification of critical issues that need to be addressed in the further
development of inherently safer LNG bunkering technologies.