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This paper investigates the role of tenure security in defining resettlement packages for oil refinery displaced communities of the Kabaale parish. The parish is located in the Buseruka sub-county, Hoima district in western Uganda. Descriptive and explorative designs employing both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to enlist data from 48 displaced households as well as key informants. Customary land tenure is not fully acknowledged as legitimate, and thus customary landowners were not fairly treated as compared to those whose land was formally registered under freehold tenure. It was found that women and other secondary land rights owners were unfairly treated in the resettlement packages. We concluded that customary tenure security ought to be enhanced through the acquisition of certificates of customary ownership and that local communities should be sensitised to respect women’s land rights.

The Decision Ladder (DL) Template is often used to understand workers’ reasoning processes. In high-hazard industries such as oil refining, frontline workers’ decisions are crucial to managing abnormal situations and preventing unwanted events. This paper describes research undertaken–using the DL Template–to analyze workers’ responses to abnormal situations as elicited during Critical Decision Method interviews. The paper firstly describes the evolution DL Template since Rasmussen’s original writings. It then describes challenges encountered when using the traditional DL Template to analyze interview responses. A modified DL Template is proposed that provides a more detailed top portion of the template to allow more explicit analysis of how knowledge-based reasoning might be used when addressing abnormal, safety-critical situations.

This article discusses how the Chinese government engages in online political debates and whether it adjusts its policies to respond to public concerns raised in such debates. This research explores government actions and discourses by using debates between Chinese net-users and the government around the building of an oil refinery in Kunming as a case study. It finds that the government used traditional party newspapers and social media as platforms to express its opinions and to interact with net-users regarding the oil refinery. The reports published in party media and government social media posts acknowledged the government’s awareness of the public’s concerns, demonstrated their reaction to the concerns and reinforced the government’s agenda. However, although the government engaged with the debate, it did not change its decisions about the oil refinery to respond to the public concerns raised online.

Cost benefit analysis (CBA) has long been used as a useful tool to appraise and evaluate the value of a range of investment projects to a society. Certain aspects of this method such as the appropriate discount rate is an important concern, because the choice of discount rates deeply affect the valuations of future income streams. Other aspects concerning financial flows and appropriate ‘shadow prices’ have also received considerable attention. However, when a megaproject with the character of a ‘universal intermediate’ is considered, its multiplier effects may be wide-ranging and permeate several economic and social layers and may be captured only in the aggregates. This study examines the costs and benefits of Vadinar refinery in Gujarat with a focus on this welfare dimension on society for the project. The framework explores a methodological breakthrough in CBA studies. In constituting the macroeconomic effects of expansion of the mega oil refinery, the wider economic impact (WEI) is estimated using the computable general equilibrium (CGE) model and incorporated into the CBA. This assimilation of CBA with macroeconomic externality obtained from the CGE model framework is perhaps only one of its kind in economic analysis of major infrastructure projects of any country. CBA when combined with CGE as an analytical tool can be gainfully employed to appraise or evaluate large scale projects like oil refineries. JEL Classification: B41, C51, C52, C53, C54, C55, D50, D58, D60, D61, D62, H23, H43, L71, O22, Q43

This article investigates the macroeconomic determinants of crude oil demand (consumption) in Ghana with annual data from 1980 to 2013. The study applied the vector error correction model (VECM) to estimate the long-run and short-run determinants of crude oil demand in Ghana within the study period. The long-run estimates reveal that price of crude oil, real GDP per capita, real effective exchange rate and energy saving technical progress are significant long-run determinants of crude oil demand. The results also indicate that crude oil demand in Ghana is income and price inelastic. Crude oil price has a positive long-run effect indicating the virtual lack of substitutes and overdependence on crude oil for energy generation and economic activities in Ghana. Based on the variance decomposition and impulse response analyses, the study also found that positive shocks from real effective exchange rate had a dominant and positive impact on crude oil demand in Ghana. We suggest among others that Ghana vigorously explore alternative and sustainable energy sources to curtail the overdependence on crude oil, strategically hedge against volatilities in the exchange rate market, and revive the country’s oil refinery to refine her own crude oil to reduce importation.

Infrastructure projects, which include a wide range of construction and energy projects, play an important role amid other industrial projects. In this regard, petroleum refinery industry projects are one of the leading manufacturing industries in the world and have the most notable position in the energy industry projects. Developing petroleum refinery industry projects are one of the principal contributors to economic and social development. In spite of the necessity of country development, this development has to be sustained at least in economic, social, and environmental matters (pillars of sustainable development) particularly after the Brundtland Commission Report in 1987. In this paper, it is proposed to simplify the evaluation process of life cycle sustainability versus life cycle stages. Thus, an indicator-based approach is used in order to evaluate the sustainability along different stages of petroleum refinery industry projects. Also, a multi-level hierarchy of criteria decision making is defined by using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), combined with a fuzzy set theory to enhance the reliability of the results. The outputs of this paper will be helpful for decision makers in many ways such as the most important stage with regard to sustainable development matters; or the most important pillars (economic, social, and environmental) of sustainability in each life cycle stage. Also, other valuable outputs based on the results are consequently discussed.

The article is a case study on Essar Oil’s Vadinar Refinery in Gujarat. In the wake of the decision to divest the stake to Rosneft group of Russia, the Ruia’s-led Essar Group were interested to present a portrayal of the financial profitability and socio-economic importance of their refinery project at Vadinar. The project was assigned to the authors towards evaluation. The analysis assumes significance as refinery is a strategic sector, and there lies immense potential for Indian refiners to attain sustainable competitive advantage through economies of scale and adoption of most advanced technologies to process sour crude of the highest complexity, thus, producing the cleanest fuels in multiple distillates. Using a social cost–benefit approach, the article evaluates the financial viability and socio-economic contribution of the refinery at Vadinar at the local and regional level, focusing on multiplier effect of income, tax and savings generated, including other externalities. The present findings would assist in policy implications for the strategic investment in refinery operations as well as building a template for future researchers interested to explore the economic aspect of oil refineries from welfare perspective. JEL: B41, D60, D61, D62, H23, H43, L71, O22, Q43

With the passage of time for chemical operations involving packed-bed reactors, especially in petroleum refining and petrochemical industries, non-filterable fines such as coke, corrosion products and fine clay in oilsands bitumen deposit on the catalyst particles. The gradual entrapment and deposition of fine particles of range 0.7–20 µm cause the pore-plugging phenomenon to occur which consequently blocks the flow passages inside the porous medium. To understand the plugging phenomenon and its effect on hydrodynamic of the reactor, we developed a computational fluid dynamics model which is based on reactor collection efficiency, filtration rate, Brownian motion and interfacial momentum exchange terms to simulate the pressure drop due to deposition of fine particles in real conditions. With the help of this model, we have studied the effect of fines deposition on bed porosity and clogging. This is for the first time that Ansys Fluent has been used to simulate fine-particle deposition in packed-bed conditions. The result was a Eulerian–Eulerian 2-D computational fluid dynamics model which considered all the three phases, i.e. liquid, catalyst and fine particles. The results were validated against the experiments reported in the literature and reached good agreement.

The drive to improve efficiency and to reduce emissions (including greenhouse gases) from internal-combustion engines has significant ramifications for fuel properties. Deployment of improved engines is aided by the wide availability of well-defined fuels, sometimes with more stringent specification of properties such as the sulphur content and the vaporisation and combustion characteristics (e.g. the octane rating). Fuel regulation has also led to the inclusion of low-carbon fuel components such as ethanol and biodiesel in mainstream road fuels. These trends will probably continue over the next few decades, and so it is important to understand their implications for commercial-scale fuel production and distribution. This paper provides a technical explanation of the linkages between the properties of commercial-scale fuels, the technologies used to make them and the ‘landscape’ of the fuels industry (e.g. the distribution systems and the interlinked markets for non-fuel products and energy). Industrially relevant examples are used to explain how the refining industry has adapted, and is still adapting, to the changes in the sulphur and volatility specifications, the mandated biocontent and the changes in engine technology. This paper is not intended to make a case for any specific type of fuel but does aim to explain the principles by which refined fuels can be adapted to meet future specifications or to work in conjunction with alternative fuel components. It covers current issues such as the lower sulphur content, the increased biocontent and the emerging theme of higher-octane-number gasoline as a route to a higher engine efficiency.

The quality of the product helps in developing the brand image of the product. The quality management is one of the most vital areas of operations manager who plans and monitors the quality in every stage of production of each component. It, therefore, becomes customary for operations manager to structure the quality monitoring system to achieve the intended quality to satisfy the customer. The structuring of quality monitoring system comes from how we develop the modelling of production and quality of a product. With this backdrop, the modelling of quality and production of heaters used in oil refinery has been developed and presented in this article using the extended frame work of physical system theory (PST). The PST has been used by earlier researchers for modelling a particular production system1 using flow of materials as “through” variables and cost as “across” variables. In this article the “quality” has been considered as a third variable for modelling the quality for production of heaters. The production of heaters is a complex manufacturing system, so for clarity of the readers, the quality modelling of a very simple production system has been presented as an illustrative example. Since the quality is an individual perception, for computing the value of quality variables a method has been suggested which meets the basic quality requirements desired by the industry. Based on the developed model, the sensitivity analysis has been performed to assess the impact of changes in the parameters on the quality of output.

The assumption of every good probe is to expose the challenge(s) of a given subject within their given terms and proffer solution(s). This article questions Nigerian government and its agencies setting fuel importation probes since 1999, whose terms of reference have been cosmetic and failed to adequately define the challenges hindering the development of refineries in Nigeria. Using empirical evidence from primary and secondary sources of data which build upon the political economy theory of the state, this article highlights the glaring structural challenges which all the fuel importation probes deliberately neglected because of the interplay of class interest and power relations, in ways that enriched the dominant class coalitions and their political loyalties and suggested that these structural challenges must be quickly addressed through a people-oriented oil and gas blueprint by the new Nigeria government, to get it right in the downstream oil and gas sector.

Niche ports typically are smaller marine ports that specialize in handling specific commodities and can be the interface between import and export of bulk commodities from landside facilities, such as oil refineries. Specialization can make port-dependent industries and their customers particularly vulnerable to disruptions of port operations because the specialized handling facilities may be unique to the port. Industries may not be able to shift their supply to other modes, such as rail. This paper outlines the use of automatic identification system transponder data from oceangoing vessels, in concert with open source data, to quantify first-order impacts of a supply chain disruption at a niche port. Results are presented from a study of a Canadian niche port where a worst-reasonable-case scenario of a 1-week disruption to oil imports and exports would delay delivery of an estimated 246 million L of fuel to New England for at least a week; Boston, Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine, would be most affected. The approach used in this study could be a valuable screening tool for public safety agencies wanting a better understanding of vulnerabilities and interdependencies at niche ports in situations in which detailed simulations and modeling are impractical.

The case describes the uncertain and unavoidable events that delayed the commissioning of a transformer at Central India Oil Refineries Ltd. The project was not being executed as planned, resulting in the delay of almost all the activities. The commissioning of the transformer had become the bottleneck of the refinery because all the pre-commissioning and commissioning activities of the refinery required steam and power, which were in turn dependent on the transformer. Project management tools such as the critical path method and programme evaluation and review technique were used to analyze the time required for the completion of the commissioning of the transformer and resource reallocation for speeding up the project. A cost versus time trade-off analysis was applied to determine the activities to be crashed in order to produce the maximum overall job profit.

The City of Kwinana is a satellite community outside of Perth, Western Australia, that was planned in support of an oil refinery and industrial area in 1952. Kwinana is significant as one of the first planned new towns in Australia and a symbol of the urban industrial maturation of the state of Western Australia. This article summarizes the key events leading up to the selection of the site, the most salient features of the development agreement, and the planning and construction of the new town. Two ways of understanding planning knowledge transfer are discussed in a postcolonial context and applied to understand the overseas origins and vernacular features of this unique example of Australian planning.

The activities of the oil industry have several impacts on the environment due to the large amounts of oily wastes that are generated. The oily sludges are a semi-solid material composed by a mixture of clay, silica and iron oxides contaminated with oil, produced water and the chemicals used in the production of oil. Nowadays both the treatment and management of these waste materials is essential to promote sustainable management of exploration and exploitation of natural resources. Biological, physical and chemical processes can be used to reduce environmental contamination by petroleum hydrocarbons to acceptable levels. The choice of treatment method depends on the physical and chemical properties of the waste as well as the availability of facilities to process these wastes. Literature provides some operations for treatment of oily sludges, such as landfilling, incineration, co-processing in clinkerization furnaces, microwave liquefaction, centrifugation, destructive distillation, thermal plasma, low-temperature conversion, incorporation in ceramic materials, development of impermeable materials, encapsulation and biodegradation in land farming, biopiles and bioreactors. The management of the technology to be applied for the treatment of oily wastes is essential to promote proper environmental management, and provide alternative methods to reduce, reuse and recycle the wastes.

The olive oil commodity chain (OOCC) is very complex and has several kinds of agent with different positions and roles. Four main phases – agricultural production, olive milling, oil refining and commercial distribution – can be identified. The positions and drivenness levels associated with them are very heterogeneous. Given the way that the OOCC is currently organized, refinery companies and large retailers are the agents with the highest drivenness levels. At the same time, there are persistent disputes among the different agents in the various phases, between not only refineries and large retailers but also milling cooperatives. In this context, refineries and cooperatives have made several attempts at industrial upgrading. Quality conventions are basic elements in the daily working of the OOCC. Different quality conventions are promoted by various kinds of agent. This article analyses not only the different phases of the OOCC but also its associated conventions. The first two phases can be analysed only in specific case studies. For this reason, localized olive oil production systems, based on different quality conventions, will be analysed in two case studies: Beas (Huelva) and Arjona–Porcuna (Jaén). Each of these towns has very different agro-ecosystems and uses different agricultural handling systems and olive-milling techniques.

Estonia is still the world leader in utilization of oil shale. Enefit has cooperated with Outotec to develop a new generation of solid heat carrier technology – Enefit280, which is more efficient, environmentally friendlier and has higher unit capacity. The breakeven price of oil produced in Enefit280 process is competitive with conventional oils. The new technology has advantages that allow easy adaptation to other oil shales around the world. Hydrotreated shale oil liquids have similar properties to crude oil cuts. Design for a shale oil hydrotreater unit can use process concepts, hardware components, and catalysts commercially proven in petroleum refining services.

Contribution of radon and its decay products towards the total effective dose has been reported to be more than 50% and is a second leading cause of the lung cancer after cigarette smoking. It is an established fact that besides soil and rocks, naturally occurring radio nuclides are also associated with the petroleum extracted from the sedimentary deposits. Therefore, radon measurement around oil refineries is desirable. In this regard, an indoor radon measurement study was carried out in 40 dwellings which were situated in the vicinity of an oil refinery in the Rawalpindi district using CR-39-based radon detectors. For comparison, indoor radon levels were also measured in 40 dwellings situated at a greater distance (>2 km) from the refinery. The maximum measured indoor radon concentration was found to be 190 ± 6 Bq·m−3 whilst the minimum recorded concentration was 12 ± 7 Bq·m−3. The mean radon concentration in the dwellings surveyed was 57 ± 29 Bq·m−3. No significant difference was observed in the average indoor radon levels in the dwellings situated near the oil refinery premises when compared with those further away. From the measured radon concentrations, an annual effective dose was calculated to be 0.9 ± 0.1 mSv which is below the ICRP recommended value.

An analysis is provided of fuel ethanol transportation activity and potential distribution constraints if the total 36 billion gal of renewable fuel use by 2022 is mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Ethanol transport by domestic truck, marine, and rail distribution systems from ethanol refineries to blending terminals is estimated with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's North American infrastructure network model. Most supply and demand data provided by EPA were geocoded, and the transportation infrastructure network was updated through use of available commercial sources. The percentage increases in ton-mile movements by rail, waterways, and highways in 2022 are estimated to be 2.8%, 0.6%, and 0.13%, respectively, compared with the corresponding 2005 total domestic flows by various modes. Overall, a significantly higher level of future ethanol demand would have a minimal impact on the transportation infrastructure. However, there will be spatial impacts, and a significant level of investment will be needed because of a considerable increase in rail traffic from refineries to ethanol distribution terminals.

The March 2005 British Petroleum (BP) Texas City Refinery disaster provided a stimulus to examine the state of process safety in the U.S. refining industry. Participatory action researchers conducted a nation-wide mail-back survey of United Steelworkers local unions and collected data from 51 unionized refineries. The study examined the prevalence of highly hazardous conditions key to the Texas City disaster, refinery actions to address those conditions, emergency preparedness and response, process safety systems, and worker training. Findings indicate that the key highly hazardous conditions were pervasive and often resulted in incidents or near-misses. Respondents reported worker training was insufficient and less than a third characterized their refineries as very prepared to respond safely to a hazardous materials emergency. The authors conclude that the potential for future disasters plagues the refining industry. In response, they call for effective proactive OSHA regulation and outline ten urgent and critical actions to improve refinery process safety.

International audience; The transportation of crude oil from production fields to refineries is a very important operation in the oil industry. In this paper, an inventory routing problem for crude oil transportation is studied, where the crude oil is transported from a central depot to a set of customers with dynamic demand using multiple transportation modes. Oil can be transported through marine routes, pipelines or a combination of the two modes. The marine transportation of crude oil is performed by a heterogeneous fleet of tankers with limited capacity owned by an oil distributor itself and/or the tankers of different types rented from a third party. Each transportation operation has a lead time and the storage capacity of oil at each customer is limited. The problem is to determine over a given planning horizon an optimal oil transportation plan that minimizes the total transportation and inventory costs subject to various constraints. The plan defines the number of tankers of each type to rent and the number of tankers of each type to dispatch on each route in each period. A mixed-integer programming model is established for the problem. Because of the high complexity and large size of the problem, the model is too complicated to be solved exactly. A metaheuristic method, the Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP) enhanced by an intensification strategy based on Path Relinking is developed to find its near-optimal solutions. Numerical test results of the method demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.

Inclusion of the local community in a continuous dialogue aimed at reducing the risks posed by hazardous industries such as chemical plants and oil refineries is an increasingly common feature of some regulatory regimes. This article explores the implications of this regulatory shift for the reduction of risk through research undertaken in a major Australian city. The study found that local communities, when given a formal voice in regulatory regimes, did push industry to consider an extended range of risks. These risks included the risk of explosion or major chemical spill threatening health and the environment (termed here actuarial risks) but also concerns about the orderliness within the local neighbourhood and proper relationships between industry and community (risks of a more socio-cultural nature). Further, the escalation of political risk was critical in determining which actuarial and socio-cultural concerns of the community were listened to. Regulatory innovations involving increased accountability of hazardous industry to the local community may increase pressure on targeted industry to reduce risk, but the ensuing risk management is likely to involve political and socio-cultural as well as actuarial risks.

The ISA, based on system theory, is the best way to organize knowledge and exchange it. It depends on defining every system through its boundary, main processes within this boundary, and exchange with the environment through this boundary. It relies upon thermodynamics and information theory and is, therefore, applicable to all kinds of systems, which makes it most suitable for cross-disciplinary investigations and innovation. SD is complex and cross-disciplinary by its very nature and, therefore, the ISA is the best way to investigate its different subsystems. Among the most important subsystems of SD are integrated bio-refineries and bio-fuels, both of which are investigated in this article.

This report examines the prevalence rate of Hodgkin’s disease in an American mid-west town located directly south of a non-operational oil refinery. The refinery has a history of benzene-containing gasoline leaks dating back to the early 1900s. Exposure data were assessed through the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data as published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and supplemented by exposure simulations using variations of residential exposure times and odour levels and the benzene content of the gasoline. Prevalence rates depended on the size of the population in question. The population size varied greatly between sources, with the more conservative and consistent estimates being reported by the local government and United States Census Bureau and the highest population figure being reported by the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry. The prevalence of Hodgkin’s disease for the residents within 1 mile from the refinery was found to be elevated for every population figure, ranging from 72.11 cases per 100,000 using the ATSDR’s population to 182.34 per 100,000, whereas the prevalence for Hodgkin’s disease in all the United States is only 22 cases of Hodgkin’s disease per 100,000 people. The prevalence value reported in this report should be given greater weight than what would have been calculated using data from the ATSDR. Because of its significantly increased value compared with the rest of the United States, it provides evidence of benzene’s role as a causative agent in the etiology of Hodgkin’s disease.

In this paper a semianalytical model has been proposed to predict the rate at which oil components dissolve in water when an oil spill occurs in a marine environment. The model breaks the oil into a number of pseudocomponents proportional to the number of compounds originally present in the oil and calculates the rate of dissolution for each component. In addition, the components are divided into paraffinic, naphthenic, and aromatic hydrocarbon types and the amount of dissolution of each pseudocomponent is calculated versus time. In this method the concentration of most toxic components of oil (mainly monoaromatics) is determined. The model considers variable surface area and slick thickness and requires oil specifications (i.e., American Petroleum Institute [API] gravity and boiling point) in addition to air and water temperatures and speeds. The model has been applied to a Kuwaiti crude oil and its products naphtha and kerosene samples at 20°C and 40°C. The results could be useful in selection of an appropriate method for oil spill clean up as well as simulation of environmental impact of oil spill from toxicity points of view.

The aim of this study is to obtain gasoline like fuel from waste engine oil by catalytic pyrolysis which can be used in internal-combustion engines. Petroleum based waste engine oil can be converted into reusable products such as gasoline and diesel fuel. The aims of waste engine oil processing are upgrading via recycling and re-refining processes of the petroleum based wastes by converting them into reusable products such as gasoline and heavy oil. Possible acceptable processes are distillation, cracking and pyrolysis. The pyrolysis liquid products of waste lubricant oil can be used as alternative engine fuel. The yields of liquid products, they were called as “waste oil gasoline” increase increasing temperature and catalyst amount. To investigate the effects of catalysts on the yields of distillation the purified oil samples were blended as mass basis of 2.5%, 5.0 %, and 10.0 with catalysts known as perlite and wood ash. The highest yield of liquid product was 92.5% which can be obtained from the pyrolysis with 10% perlite. The yields of liquid products from pyrolysis of waste lubricant oil in the presence of perlite are higher than those of wood ash catalytic runs.

Studying interpersonal relationships is a complex subject that is often given inadequate attention by behavioral scientists. Each individual in a group has unique interpersonal style that has been shaped by the lifetime of their experience with others. Interpersonal styles help a person to relate in positive or negative ways with superiors, subordinates and peers. This may mean being able to make and keep friendly relationships as well as being able to end relationships constructively. The study was done at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Kochi Refinery, erstwhile Kochi Refineries Limited, Ambalamughal, which is one of the premiere refineries in India. The refinery has a capacity of 7.5 million metric tons per annum, which is about to be expanded to 10.5 MMTPA. The study is an attempt from the behavioral perspective of individuals to understand the predominant interpersonal style of officers in Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Kochi Refinery and also to analyze whether the transactional styles are same or different for male and female officers. The study takes into account factors like Transactional Analysis, Ego States and the 12 different Interpersonal Styles. It deals with assuming the level of OK styles displayed in the organization and developing strategies to improve the OK styles and reduce the Not-OK styles so that the interpersonal behavior is optimized which will lead to organizational effectiveness which is the assumption made in this study. The primary data collection was done with the help of a questionnaire and secondary data was collected from magazines, journals and the Internet. The size of the sample was 132 consisting of 118 males and 14 females where 17 were top-level officers, 73 were middle level officers and 42 were junior level officers. The sample consists of 62 officers from technical departments and 70 officers from non-technical departments. The sample was selected using stratified random sampling technique. The study revealed that the operating effectiveness quotient of the officers could be generalized to be average. Also there is need for training in creative child and regulating parent ego states. The study also revealed that there is significant difference between the transactional styles of male and female officers.

In order to fulfil specifications, avoid quality give-aways, improve process safety and save on costs, refineries need to have on-line methods for the control of their processes. On-line analysers allow product streams characteristic variables to be controlled, providing a great amount of data in almost real time.1 Currently, the spectroscopic analysers [near infrared (NIR), mid infrared, nuclear magnetic resonanc and ultraviolet] are the most widely used. These analysers allow the value of the property of interest to be inferred from the measurement of a spectrum. Due to the great quantity of variables that constitute a spectrum, mathematical tools are required to extract the information related to the properties of interest. Repsol YPF has developed, and is in process of implantating, several NIR systems in its different laboratories, pilot plants and industrial complexes, which include from gasoline or diesel blending systems control to some petrochemical product manufacture controls. In the development of these systems, different hardware and software have been compared. In this work, the results obtained with three different chemometric methods for predicting critical gasoline properties for blending control are analysed and compared—partial least squares, a topological method and artificial neural networks.

The importance of infrastructure for sustained economic development is well recognized. High transaction costs arising from inadequate and inefficient infrastructure can prevent the economy from realising its full growth potential regardless of the progress on other fronts. Physical infrastructure covering transportation, power and communication through its backward and forward linkages facilitates growth, social infrastructure including water supply, sanitation, sewage disposal, education and health, which are in the nature of primary services and has a direct impact on the quality of life. The performance of infrastructure is largely a reflection of the performance of the economy. Infrastructure industries are measured by six key infrastructure and core industries (i.e., electricity, crude oil, petroleum refinery products, coal, steel and cement). In this paper, the overall growth and performance of infrastructure services has been examined in depth on the basis of the different parameters such as trends in growth of physical output in infrastructure sectors, telecommunications, power, ports, railways, civil aviation, and post so as to examine whether there is a negative or positive association between infrastructure development and India's economic growth.

Several hurricanes and industrial explosions in 2005 brought increasing public attention to the risk inherent in the location of US petrochemical facilities. The upper Texas Gulf Coast is home to a significant cluster of petrochemical industries including some of the largest refineries in the United States. Residents live, play and work in the shadow of petrochemical towers. While the petrochemical industries have brought jobs and economic development to the area, they have permanently changed the landscape and been linked to increased stress and illness for local residents. Nevertheless, the US demand for their products means that these industries will continue to pose ongoing risks for citizens that live near them. Our photo essay intends to provide insight into these particularly important and complex landscapes of risk—landscapes in which the natural environment and well-being of residents is largely ignored as fuel prices and energy security are debated.

Much as developing countries have been saddled with unwanted incinerators, refineries, waste dumps, or dangerous assembly sectors in an era of global outsourcing, a great many U.S. rural communities have in the last decade and a half found themselves face-to-face with massive industrial livestock complexes. This article examines the alliances that emerged in opposition to corporate livestock complexes including farm and rural community associations and environmental organizations. This study of anti-factory farm campaigns in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri examines the circumstances under which broad-based coalitions opposing powerful corporate interests emerge, and what such alliances do and do not achieve under given institutional circumstances.

In this review paper general information about the energy situation of Turkey is outlined. The ongoing energy policy of the recent governments of Turkey is given and the regulations that are in place regarding energy are mentioned. Then, a summary about various energy sources such as oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, geothermal energy and wind energy etc. is given. Regarding oil, Turkey's petroleum production and consumption, reserves and refineries are described. Then, similar emphasis is made for coal and thermal-electric power plants. The total electricity transmission grid installed across the country is argued in terms of years and finally environmental concerns and privatization attempts about the energy situation are explained.

Modern energy is not universally available. An estimated two billion people in the world do not yet have access to modern fuels and around one quarter of all energy consumed in developing countries is derived from the burning of wood, charcoal, crop residues and animal dung. Yet a modern energy carrier exists that can meet the thermal energy needs of many of these people from both developing and developed countries. This energy carrier is available now, at low marginal cost. It can rapidly provide a critical step up on the energy ladder from traditional fuels to modern fuels whilst accelerating the socio-economic development of urban and rural regions in a sustainable manner. This modern energy carrier is LP Gas. LP Gas (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) is a by-product of natural gas production and / or crude oil refining. With an annual demand of approximately 250 million tonnes of oil equivalent, LP Gas consumption is now equivalent to approximately 10% of global natural gas consumption. Due to its versatile characteristics, LP Gas has found uses in many applications from being a thermal fuel in domestic applications to being essential in industrial and agricultural uses. LP Gas is now also the world's most popular alternative automotive fuel. Energy demand generally increases with population growth but in many developing countries, the rate of population growth far exceeds the rate of modern energy provision with a result that energy poverty in developing countries is extremely high. Lack of modern energy prevents the socio-economic development necessary to allow communities to move up the energy ladder from traditional fuels to fuels that can support and stimulate a greater level of economic activities. LP Gas is the ideal transition fuel to modern energy carriers such as natural gas. Access can be achieved at relatively low marginal cost through a well-developed global LP Gas industry. Barriers to LP Gas use can often be overcome through effective government policies. The case for government support to the LP Gas sector is based on the positive contribution the fuel can make to sustainable development. Experience from several countries shows that active government support can catalyse the development of the LP Gas market and lead to a virtuous circle of growing market potential, increased investment and expanded availability. LP Gas is available now. There is nothing exotic to invent or improve. The transportation system that moves it is in place and the tanks that store it are available today.

Spent oil refinery catalyst from the FCC unit has been evaluated as an additive in intumescent flame retardant formulations containing ammonium polyphosphate (APP) and pentaerythritol (PER) in an ethylene– butyl acrylate–maleic anhydride terpolymer matrix. UL-94, LOI and cone calorimetry analyses were carried out and the results show that the addition of small amounts of the catalyst to the additive system greatly enhances flame retardancy performance of the intumescent formulations. All materials containing intumescent formulations were V0 rated according to the UL-94 standard. A ten unit increase in LOI values was observed by the addition of 5 wt.% of catalyst to the APP/PER formulations, and significant lowering in the rate of heat release, total heat evolved, smoke, CO and CO2 emission were detected by cone calorimetry.

This study examines whether petroleum refineries that violate environmental laws in Black, Hispanic, and low-income communities tend to receive smaller fines than those refineries in White and affluent communities. The sample consists of all petroleum refinery facilities fined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) between 1998 and 1999 for violating the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and/or the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ( N = 60). The mean penalty for noncompliance is much lower in Black than in White census tracts ($108,563 vs. $341,590) and in low-income than in high-income census tracts ($259,784 vs. $334,267). Multivariate analysis suggests that these disparities are not due to factors such as the seriousness of violation, the number of past violations, the facility inspection history, the facility production, or the EPA region in which the violating refinery is situated. It is concluded that the government does a poor job of providing equal protection to racially and economically diverse communities.

Crude oil is a major source of energy and feedstock for petrochemicals. Oily sludge, bio-sludge and chemical sludge are the major sludges generated from the processes and effluent treatment plants of the refineries engaged in crude oil refining operations. Refineries in India generate about 28,220 tons of sludge per annum. Various types of pollutants like phenols, heavy metals, etc. are present in the sludges and they are treated as hazardous waste. Oily sludge, which is generated in much higher amount compared to other sludges, contains phenol (90-100 mg/kg), nickel (17-25 mg/kg), chromium (27-80 mg/kg), zinc (7-80 mg/kg), manganese (19-24 mg/kg), cadmium (0.8-2 mg/kg), copper (32-120 mg/kg) and lead (0.001-0.12 mg/kg). Uncontrolled disposal practices of sludges in India cause degradation of environmental and depreciation of aesthetic quality. Environmental impact due to improper sludge management has also been identified. Salient features of various treatment and disposal practices have been discussed. Findings of a case study undertaken by the authors for Numaligarh Refinery in India have been presented. Various system alternatives have been identified for waste management in Numaligarh Refinery. A ranking exercise has been carried out to evaluate the alternatives and select the appropriate one. A detailed design of the selected waste management system has been presented.

Analyse de l'evolution de la capacite de raffinage de 1973 a 2000 et des exportations de petrole et de produits petroliers, de 1980 a 2000, dans le Monde et au Moyen-Orient. Etude des perspectives d'ici 2020. Analyse de la fixation des prix des produits petroliers, de la rentabilite du secteur du raffinage et des strategies du secteur du raffinage pour les pays du Moyen-Orient.

Surveys of the petroleum sectors of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are provided which are background to the proposal for a new export pipeline. A petroleum export line from the Caspian via Iran to the Middle East Gulf would have many advantages. It would improve the security of supply of Caspian oil, it would improve social stability in the region and it would encourage additional oil exploration and possibly upgrading of Caspian region refineries. A detailed comparison is provided between the petroleum production potential for the Middle East and for the Caspian region. Two options for export pipelines through Iran are described.

This paper presents a numerical prediction of the flow patterns in a polluted reservoir to supply the fire control water and to process water to an oil refinery. A biological treatment for improving water quality started in 1995. Although the treatment was successful in reducing organic load and bad odour, it was suspected that the locations of the inlet and outlets in the reservoir were possible causes for a short cut in the flow, which might greatly reduce the efficiency of the biological treatment. A numerical investigation to simulate and predict the fluid motion was carried out with the aim of providing quantitatively remedial approaches to perfect the biological treatment process, especially for future working conditions of increased pumping flowrate. The numerical analysis predicted the appearance of a flow short cut in the reservoir with the consequential reduction in its retention time; simulation has shown that this negative characteristic can be eliminated if the inlet and the outlets are relocated.

In mid-1997 National Power, a major British electricity generator, received permission from the national environmental regulator, the Environment Agency, to test-burn petroleum coke blended with local coal at their Drax power station in North Yorkshire. Late in 1997 these tests were completed successfully, from the perspective of Drax, and the application for the full-scale burn of the blended fuel is expected to be made in 1998. The imported by-product of oil refining is considerably cheaper than local coal, but allegedly richer in several environmental pollutants. In spite of flourishing green rhetoric, New Labour has not reversed the dominance of commercial over all other considerations in UK electricity generation, which in turn left NP with little choice but to reduce fuel costs and utilise its expensive FGD facilities. This paper analyses documents, interviews and questionnaires with participants in the controversy and discusses findings with reference to various decision making theories, asking who is 'really' to blame for unpopular energy policy decisions.

An environmental hazard ranking model (benchmark ranking model) has been developed and used for the ranking of organic compounds likely to be found in petroleum refinery effluents. The hazardfunction is essentially a multiplication of variables for toxicity (as LC50), octanol-water ratio (Kow), soil adsorption (Koc), solubility (S), and half-life (T1/2). The final score is obtained by taking the logarithm of the hazard and normalizing the values from 1-10. It is a benchmark ranking (BR) approach in the sense that the hazard for chemicals with essentially unknown environmental behaviors may be compared with the hazard for chemicals with well-known behaviors.In general, debates on water pollution have focused on non-polar (hydrophobic) compounds whereas polar (water soluble) compounds have attracted much less attention and regulation. This study focuses on a number of the polar compounds (methyl-tertiary butyl-ether [MTBE], morpholine, metanolamine and others) since there are indications that some of these may cause environmental damage. While non-polar compounds receive the highest score in the study, the combination of frequently large volumes, low biodegradability, low treatability, and analytical detection problems suggest caution when neglecting polar compounds in waste minimization pursuits and in the assessment of environmental hazard and damage.The ranking results are compared to those obtained by using three regulatory systems for the screening and classification of chemicals from the USA and Western Europe. Only the environmental dimension, not the human health dimension, is incorporated in the comparisons and final scores. Although there is good agreement, the number of compounds that get a low score (1-3 on the 1-10 scale) are fewer in the BR system than in the other systems, partly due to the weight of degradation as T½in the function.The lack of accurate input data, in particular for biodegradation, is a major problem in the ranking. Data for biological oxygen demand (BOD), or from major biodegradation models such as BIODEG and AERUD, give little or no distinction between compounds that biodegrade in four months or forty years.

Conventional wisdom suggests that a large-scale shift from gasoline to diesel light-duty highway vehicles would have an impact on energy consumption, emissions, and infrastructure. Under a relatively modest scenario, based on French experience since 1970, a dieselization strategy could have displaced slightly more than half a quad of petroleum (3.7 percent of the energy consumed by light-duty vehicles) in 1992, while reducing carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC), and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by 6.3, 0.8, and 0.09 million tonnes, and increasing sulfur oxides (SOx) and particulates (PM-10) by 0.03 and 0.2 million tonnes, respectively. As a percentage of pollutants attributable to light-duty vehicles, these values represent decreases of 11 percent, 10 percent, and 2 percent for CO, HC, and NOxand increases of SOxand PM-10 of 36 percent and 39 percent, respectively. The projected oil displacement and emissions impacts would have been achieved by using a diesel technology that is significantly less efficient than what is currently available and what may become available as a result of current research. Energy consumed in refining would also have been marginally reduced, although additional processing could have been required to increase the fraction of distillate and decrease that of gasoline. Finally, a shift to diesel could have broad implications on U.S. and world oil markets, modifying crude oil supply-demand balances and requiring a different mix of unit operations in domestic refineries that, in turn, could change the capital investment path of the industry, which is currently geared to maximizing gasoline production.

Methyl tertiary butyl ether has caused the following cancers in rats and mice: kidney, testicular, liver, lymphomas, and leukemias. Thus, in the absence of adequate data on humans, it is biologically plausible and prudent to regard methyl tertiary butyl ether —for which there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals — as a probable human carcinogen. This means that some humans are at extreme risk of contracting cancers resulting from their exposure to oxygenated gasoline containing methyl tertiary butyl ether. Immediately after the introduction of methyl tertiary butyl ether into gasoline, many consumers of this product in New Jersey, New York, Alaska, Maine, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Arizona, Montana, Massachusetts, California, and other areas, experienced a variety of neurotoxic, allergic, and respiratory illnesses. These illnesses were similar to those suffered by refinery workers from the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union who mixed methyl tertiary butyl ether with gasoline. Additionally, these illnesses occurredfollowing exposure to extremely low levels of methyl tertiary butyl ether in gasoline, particularly when compared to the adverse health effects that occurred only after exposure to very high levels of conventional gasoline. Thus, gasoline containing methyl tertiary butyl ether exhibited substantially more toxicity in humans than gasoline without this additive. A number of oil industry-sponsored or influenced reports alleged that these illnesses were either unrelated to exposure to reformulated gasoline or were characteristic of some yet-to-be-identified communicable disease. These studies further alleged that the widespread concern was not about illness, but was merely a reaction to the odor and the five cent increase in the price of gasoline. To clarify the significance of this issue, it is important to note that consumers have been using gasoline for many decades, with complaints only occurring following exposure to high levels at 100s ppm or higher. After the introduction of methyl tertiary butyl ether gasoline there were thousands of human health complaints. The sudden increase in widespread illnesses from which many thousands of individuals throughout the United States began to suffer immediately following the introduction of methyl tertiary butyl ether into gasoline provides strong and unquestionable evidence that gasoline containing methyl tertiary butyl ether is associated with human illnesses. When considering the severity of the illnesses in humans, it is prudent that this highly dangerous chemical be promptly removed from gasoline and comprehensive studies be conducted to assess the long-term effects that human may experience in the future from past and current exposure.

In this paper the wastewater treatment of organic compounds, particularly the water soluble (polar) compounds in refinery effluents, is simulated by addressing biodegradation, adsorption, and stripping/volatilization. The study examines pollutant data from two refineries in Norway and one in the United States. Previously, little attention has been paid to polar compounds. However, they are present in effluents, sometimes in large amounts, and are difficult to characterize and quantify.The study shows that many polar compounds, including the recently introduced methyl-tertiary-butyl-ether, are biodegraded by

Supply of LPG is forecast to grow over the next decade from the present level of 180 million t/y to about 185–190 million t/y, depending on demand in Asia which is rising rapidly and on new LPG export projects. Most of the increase in supply will come from new gas and crude oil production, from new LNG ventures, and from refineries reducing the n-butane content of motor gasoline. Pricing will remain volatile as a result of crude oil price volatility, variations in the winter weather in the Northern Hemisphere, and as a result of competition between ethane, PPG, naphtha and condensate as ethylene cracker feedstocks. Saudi Aramco is the world's biggest exporter of LPG/NGL, with a capacity rising from 17.5 million to more than 20 million t/y over the next decade. It plays a key role in the pricing of LPG, and since Oct. 1, 1994, has introduced a new “contract price” (CP) formula which in winter months has raised its revenue by up to $30/tonne. Its move has upset most of its clients and some of them have cancelled their contracts. Demand for LPG in OECD countries will continue to show steady growth. The increase in demand will be more rapid in the relatively less developed OECD countries, as the trend in Spain has shown in recent years. Provided that the LPG price is competitive, demand in China, South-East Asia and the Indian sub-continent could grow beyond current projections. Consumption in these countries will depend on the installation of distribution facilities and the rate at which LPG can substitute for traditional fuels and kerosine as well as compete for limited disposable incomes.

In many sectors of the process industries, advanced control and closed-loop optimisation is recognised as a mechanism for improving competitiveness. Projects are common with payback times of less than 1 year. For many companies the range of technologies is bewildering. This can be overcome by use of a reputable and experienced consultant. Increaslingly, the large control systems companies are providing these services and technologies. For many operating companies this will be the best path for ensuring they achieve the benefits they expect over the lifetime of a project.

The sources of world energy are largely in the underdeveloped, Third World Countries. Political stability is a critical factor in the geopolitics of energy and especially in under-developed countries. Energy consumers, like the US, the Europeans and the Japanese, whatever indigenous or nearby sources of energy may exist, remain heavily dependent on external oil and natural gas supplies. This situation will continue into the next century. Inevitably, therefore, they will be caught up in internal political and societal problems integral to the producing states. Similarly, issues affecting fossil fuel transportation to refineries and consuming facilities all over the world will affect energy costs and availability. Consumers are at the mercy of indigenous problems in producing states over which they have little or no control. As new production areas are sought throughout the world, intra-regional disputes over ownership of oil or natural gas will undoubtedly arise as efforts are made to find mutually agreeable solutions that assure consumers reasonably guaranteed supplies.

Clarified slurry oil (CSO, CAS #64741–62-4; also termed carbon black oil), a residual product from the fluidized catalytic cracker in petroleum refining, has the potential to be absorbed through the skin. The reproductive toxicity of CSO in male and female rats was evaluated by the topical route of exposure. CSO was administered dermally to male rats at dosages of 0 (vehicle), 0.1, 1, 10, 50, and 250 mg/kg/day for 70 days before a cohabitation period with untreated female rats. CSO was administered also to female rats at the same dosages for 14 days prior to a 7-day cohabitation period and continuing until Day 0 of gestation (day spermatozoa was present in a smear of the vaginal contents or a copulatory plug was observed in situ). The dosage volume in both experiments was 1 ml/kg, adjusted on each day of dosage based on individual body weights recorded immediately before application of CSO. Under the conditions of these experiments, the paternal no-observable-adverse-effect-level (NOAEL) for CSO administered dermally was 1 mg/kg/day. The 10, 50, and 250 mg/kg/day dosages of CSO caused body weight losses and/or decreased body weight gains and reduced feed consumption. The 50- and 250-mg/kg/day dosages also caused adverse clinical effects. No mating, fertility, or testicular end points in male rats were affected by the highest dosages tested; therefore, the reproductive NOAEL for male rats is