The lack of established acceptance criteria has been one of the key challenges to the application of quantitative risk assessment (QRA) techniques in the Canadian pipeline industry. While a wide range of such criteria have been developed and published, it remains difficult for most operators to commit to specific criteria because such criteria may not be acceptable to all stakeholders. Recognizing this limitation, the Canadian Standards Association formed a Risk Management Task Force (RMTF) under the Technical Committee for the Z662 Standard on the Oil and Gas Pipeline Systems to propose criteria for potential inclusion in its non-mandatory Annex on Risk Assessment. This paper describes the criteria that have been developed by the RMTF and provides the background information needed for users to understand and use them correctly. The discussion includes: a summary of the measures used to quantify the safety risk associated with an ignited product release; a summary of established international and Canadian criteria that have been considered; a description and interpretation of the ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Practicable) principle; and the rationale used by the RMTF to select specific individual risk and societal risk criteria for CSA Z662. The proposed criteria are also compared to the criteria underpinning other risk-based parts of the Z662 Standard, including Annexes C and O. Guidance is provided on the analysis assumptions, methods and parameters required to ensure that the risk calculations produce results that are consistent with the definition and intent of the criteria. Key issues addressed by the guidance include the definition of individual risk (i.e. location risk versus personal risk), the pipeline length over which the frequency versus number of fatalities (F-N) relationship representing societal risk is calculated, and the effect of population density averaging over the pipeline length.
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