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An approach is proposed for the environmental risk assessment of complex mixtures like petroleum substances based on the identification of clusters (“blocks”) of components with similar environmental fate and ecotoxicological properties. The risks of these blocks are assessed individually and multiplied with their proportional distribution in the substance discharged and summed in order to arrive at a total environmental risk for a specific petroleum substance, assuming additivity. This paper addresses the matter of identifying such blocks for PAH and heterocyclics present in petroleum substances. So-called regional intrinsic PEC/PNECs (Predicted Environmental Concentration divided by Predicted No Effect Concentration) are calculated for individual PAH-components for a fixed release of 1 tonne/year to water. These intrinsic PEC/PNECs are calculated from a data-set with component specific physico-chemical, fate and ecotoxicity properties and follow the EU risk assessment procedure. This paper show...

The current oil depot environmental risk is big with a wide range of environmental impact, although we have increased environmental protection efforts, but the situation is still grim. The transceiver of petroleum materials in the oil depot, storage and the oil vapor and water resulted by other operations will pollute the environment, and environmental pollution will limit the development of oil depots inevitably. So, we must pay attention to environmental protection for the sustainable development of oil depots. This paper mainly Analysis of the factors influencing petroleum materials on the environment of the oil depot.

This paper examines the effect of resource availability and resource commitment on several important regulatory measures related to environmental risk and safety performance in petrochemical manufacturing. The research is grounded in Normal Accident Theory, and it controls for the effect of interactive complexity and a coupling on environmental reliability. The study is based on a sample (n 570) of petroleum refineries located in the United States during the five-year period, 1993‐97. A statistically significant (p 5.01) relationship between resource availability and the incidence of accidental hazardous substance releases was observed. The study also identified a significant relationship between plant safety as measured by Total Case Incident Rates (TCIR) and resource availability. Surprisingly, no significant relationships were observed between accidental hazardous substance releases or safety related performance outcomes as measured by Total Case Incident Rates and resource commitment as capital spending related to health, environmental and safety in this sample of refineries.

In this paper authors present a preliminary approach to the evaluation of policies and projects based on current thinking on cost benefit analysis and real option methodology and the authors' recent work on the same subject. Authors start from the assumption that economic agents undertake investment projects in order to create and exploit opportunities for increasing profits, growth, wealth and, ultimately, their welfare. These opportunities are options, rights and not obligations to take some action in the future. They include not only projects undertaken, but also projects that could be adopted in the future and opportunities that can be further created or destroyed by this adoption. From the point of view of the welfare of an entire economy, opportunities enlarge the set of actions that may contribute to national wealth. Not only is this increased by the net flow of discounted benefits generated by new ventures, but also by the net value of the options created and destroyed by investment behavior. When companies develop investment opportunities, therefore, they contribute to national welfare in a more subtle, but not less important way, than when they are actively set to exploit some of these opportunities. By recognizing the direct contribution to country wealth of project design and planning, option theory may thus substantially change the theory and practice of decision making about capital investment.

Abstract Traditionally, the environmental risk assessment (ERA) has been limited to discharge probabilities with a qualitative description of potential environmental impact. This paper presents an ERA methodology which introduces algorithms for quantification of environmental damage which can be directly evaluated against well defined acceptance criteria. Moreover, the methodology includes three levels which are constructed so that more conservative risk estimates are obtained the less data and knowledge that are applied in the analysis. The same acceptance criteria are applied for all three levels. The presented methodology is limited to assessments of acute oil discharges in relation to ecological components. Aesthetical and economical components are not included. Introduction Norwegian legislation requires that the offshore petroleum operators define acceptance criteria for the risks in their offshore activities. Such criteria are required to be defined for human safety as well as environmental impact. Further, the legislation requires that a risk assessment has to be carried out in order to evaluate whether the acceptance criteria are met or not. This requirement for environmental risk assessment is a new practice in risk management and define needs for practical and quantitative methods. The legislation as defined today is directed towards assessing the probability for environmental damage in particularly sensitive areas. The presented methodology focus on particularly valued and sensitive environmental components. Damage Classification A major problem in environmental risk analysis is to define a taxonomy for quantification of damage to the range of environmental components. The presented methodology is limited to assessments of acute oil discharges in relation to ecological components. Effects on human health and aesthetical and economical components are not included. The ecological components are assessed on a population or community/habitat level. For a given oil contamination, they may experience unwanted effects (acute mortality, reduced reproduction, decreased biodiversity, habitat loss) to a given extent (fraction of population affected, length or area of coastal zone contaminated). Experience from earlier oil spills has shown that most ecological components will start the restitution process after the incident. The time period until the component is back to a healthy pre-spill level or a new stable situation (e.g. new carrying capacity) is referred to as the restitution time. The restitution time will depend on the environmental component considered and the magnitude and extent of the effects. The restitution time is used as an expression for the damage to environmental components considered. Five damage categories are defined and presented in Table 1. The range for the damage categories shown in Table 1 has been defined to cover the range of restitution times seen after historical spills. Acceptance Criteria The risk acceptance criteria are defined by the industry itself. The criteria are given by means of upper frequency limits for the defined damage categories. Acceptance criteria may be related to fields, installations and operations. Restitution time as consequence parameter forms a rational basis for the development of such criteria. The acceptance criteria may be presented in a consequence-frequency matrix as shown by the example in Fig. 1. In the area between intolerable and negligible risk, risk reduction means may be implemented to reduce the risk to As Low As Reasonable Possible (ALARP). P. 137^

Mixture toxicity is a topic that has become a matter of concern during the last two decades. One of the major problems with assessing the toxicity of mixtures and the associated human and environmental risk is the large number of possible mixtures, as well as the fact that the actual mixture effect for a given set of constituents might strongly depend on the actual composition of the mixture, i.e., the ratios of the constituent, as well as their nature. This paper presents a possible approach to describe and thereby better understand the pharmacokinetics and dynamics of complex mixtures by combining quantitative structure-activity relationships to predict needed parameters, lumping to reduce the complexity of the problem, and physiologically based pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modeling to integrate all this information into a complete toxicological description of the mixture. It is our hope that by presenting this conceptual approach we might be able to stimulate some criticisms and discussions in the toxicology community regarding this complex and yet very important area of research.