Abstract: To improve the level of oil depot safety management, a method was proposed for identifying the most important set of risk factors based on complex network theory and the influence of the correlation between risk factors on their importance. Based on the identification of the safety risk factors, a weighted safety risk network model was built according to the relationship and influence intensity among them. Importance evaluation criteria of the risk factors were designed based on the risk level and their influence on local and global network. Importance sequencing of those factors was carried out by using the AHP-GRA-TOPSIS model, providing a basis for recognition of the critical factors. A certain oil depot project was taken as an example, the risk factors in which were identified by using the method. The results show that weakness in performance of personnel and that in safety management are the critical risk factors of the oil deport project.

Key words: oil depot, critical risk factor, complex network, analytic hierarchy process(AHP), gray relational analysis(GRA), technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS)