(29b) Resilience By Design: How Multi-Hazard Resistant Buildings Improve the Resilience of LNG Production.

In 2022, the United States (U.S.) became the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG) with 82.9 million metric tons per year, passing Qatar and Australia. As of October 2023, the U.S. has the largest LNG export capacity of any country worldwide at 92.9 million metric tons per year. This rapid growth of global LNG export capacity is expected to continue to meet the expected demands from China, India, and Southeast Asia, even amid a focus on no- and low-carbon solutions. Consequently, with the rise in LNG facilities that are either proposed or under construction, LNG safety concerns have become a primary focus.

For many years, the focus of permitting and approving LNG production has been on analyzing and mitigating risks associated with operational hazards, including explosions and fires. However, among the LNG safety hazards, one that is often overlooked is the risk of projectiles or fragments impacting critical structures, such as buildings, tanks, and other key assets. These fragments can cause knock-on effects, posing severe risks to personnel and infrastructure. Although regulatory bodies such as FERC have not yet mandated specific fragment protection requirements, FERC is increasingly requesting information on fragment-resistant designs as part of LNG safety strategies in production and storage facilities.

As a result of the tight regulations around occupied building siting for employees on LNG facilities, owners/operators have designed facilities where operator shelters are located far from the units they operate. This design has two main negative effects: (1) operators are located at an inefficient distance that causes complications when they need to respond quickly in an emergency, and (2) operators find a place to spend time in the processing units that are often not sited for protection (i.e., compressor buildings or substations). Consequently, a solution is required for both existing and planned LNG facilities that will effectively allow operators to be close enough to the units they operate while providing them with the protection required to ensure that they are safe in the event of an emergency.

This paper will introduce readers to multi-hazard resistant building (MRB) design, which is a solution to the problem of balancing the protection of personnel with operational efficiency. To provide readers with background and context, key concepts of protective building design will also be discussed, such as the dynamic response of different building materials to hazards common in processing facilities. These concepts are then examined to illustrate how building response translates to human and equipment vulnerability. In addition, the presentation will incorporate a series of videos from several full-scale testing programs conducted at BakerRisk’s Box Canyon Test Facility to demonstrate how innovative advancements in building design allow for personnel and controls to be located in or near processing units and still meet the rigorous safety requirements for LNG facilities.

Leveraging the full-scale testing videos and previously published results, this paper will present a MRB design that combines modular construction with a high degree of protection from explosions, fragments, fires, toxics, and extreme weather to result in low vulnerability to both people and critical assets/infrastructure. Armed with the knowledge of a more resilient building option, readers will be introduced to a MRB design concept that provides a high degree of multi-hazard protection while enabling operations to be located closer to their daily job function, near the units for which they have emergency response requirements in the event of an incident, and to reduce the likelihood of escalation and/or knock-on effects due to the inability to respond.