Risk assessment on a pipeline passing through a ship mooring area

It is very common that a submarine pipeline has to pass through a ship mooring area near a harbor zone in the Bohai Bay, China. The risk assessment of accidental events induced by the potential anchoring ships is carried out, which will lead to external interference with the pipeline. A procedure to calculate the probability for the anchoring activity in the ship mooring area to damage the underlying pipeline is proposed. The adopted methodology is based on the recommendations suggested by the DNV Codes. The same philosophy is also applied to estimate the damage probability that is concerned with sinking ships.