Environmental Impact Analysis of the Emission from Petroleum Refineries in Nigeria
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Canadian Center of Science and Education
Abstract
Description
Health and environmental hazards, a thing of global concern have been the major characteristics of the petroleum
refinery areas worldwide, Nigeria inclusive. This is as a result of the emissions from petroleum refineries which
resulted into air quality degradation of the host environment. This problem which has equally affected the
climatic conditions of the petroleum producing areas is more pronounced in Nigeria due to lack of implementing
adequate policies to protect the host environment. This study is carried out to investigate the atmospheric
conditions of the petroleum refineries and identify the environmental impact of emissions of criteria pollutants
from the proposed project in the area of influence. Emission inventory of criteria pollutants was carried out on
the four existing and twenty-three proposed petroleum refineries in Nigeria. Using no control-measure option,
the estimated annual criteria air pollutants emissions from point sources in the existing refineries are 1,217
tons/annum for PM10, 45,124 tons/annum for SO2, 167,570 tons/annum for NOx, 3,842 tons/annum for VOC and
242,469 tons/annum for CO. An additional 1,082 tons/annum of PM10, 168,944 tons/annum of SO2, 688,687
tons/annum of NOx, 9,122 tons/annum of VOC and 569,975 tons/annum of CO were predicted to be added into
the Nigeria airshed by the proposed petroleum refineries. The highest pollutant emitting state was predicted to be
Rivers State with the highest number of refineries while the least pollutant emitting states were predicted to be
Kaduna, Edo, Lagos and Anambra States with only one refinery in each of the state. The ability to adopt
appropriate control measures will determine the rate of emission of criteria pollutants released into the country’s
airshed.
Keywords
TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General), TP Chemical technology