Identification and assessment of risks in petrochemical projects in Iran; case study: Bakhtar Petrochemical Company

One of the most important issues in many project-oriented organizations is the risk management of the ongoing projects of that organization. In this regard, in the first step, the potential risks of projects should be identified under a systematic and comprehensive scheme, and then, using appropriate and desirable methods, they should be evaluated in terms of their probability and their impact on project goals. In this study, considering Bakhtar Petrochemical Company, a holding company, as one of the largest companies that construct and operate petrochemical projects in Iran as a case study, the current and potential uncertainties and risks of petrochemical projects in Iran have been identified and evaluated. Two methods, namely documentation review and interview, have been used to identify risks. This procedure has led to the identification and classification of 104 potential risks in petrochemical projects in two categories and eight sub-categories. Also, since the risk assessment is an evidential, intuitive, and empirical decision-making process, the Evidential Reasoning approach has been used for this stage. Evidential Reasoning, based on the Multi-Attribute Decision-Making approach and Dempster-Shafer's Theory of Evidence, is a useful and effective method to deal with overly intuitive and inaccurate judgments made in this uncertain environment. Using this method, in addition to assessing and ranking the identified risks, has also produced a measurement of the level of recognition of the identified risks.