Stakeholder analysis for safe LNG handling at ports

This paper presents the initial results from a project entitled "TRiTON", funded by the Greek Ministry of Education, which addresses safety issues of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) at ports. Whithin this framework, a stakeholder analysis is performed for investigating the safety management operation during storage, transport, and supply of LNG at port areas. The national (Greek), the European and the international regulatory framework for LNG safety have been analysed, so as to identify relevant stakeholders and establish relationships between them. Relationships have been weighted by a group of experts to highlight the importance of some critical interactions in safety management. The social network analysis approach has been employed for creating three stakeholder networks for the most widely used methods for LNG storage and bunkering, namely: a) fixed-tank storage and tank to ship bunkering, b) truck to ship bunkering, and c) ship to ship bunkering. Statistics and metrics of the networks have been calculated, with the help of the open-source software called Gephi, such as density, centralities (degree, closeness and betweenness), clustering coefficient and modularity. Finally, the most important stakeholders for handling LNG safety at ports have been identified.