Environmental Impact

Assessment (EIA) of
Petroleum Industry
 EIA
Assessment of the environmental consequences (positive
and negative) of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects
prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed
action..

Purpose
• It promotes sustainable development by identifying
environmentally sound practice and mitigation
measures for developments.
• To ensure that environmental consequences were taken
into account during planning, designing & decision
Making process.
• To influence how it is subsequently managed during its
implementation.
• The adverse impacts could be avoided or reduce.
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Main Steps in
EIA
• Screening
• Scoping
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• Prediction sit amet,
Mitigation
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• Management and Monitoring
• Audit

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Screening
Screening often results in a categorization of
the project and from this a decision is made on
whether or not a full EIA is to be carried out.

Scoping
Scoping is the process of determining which
are the most critical issues to study and will
involve community participation to some
degree. It is at this early stage that EIA can
most strongly influence the outline proposal.

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EIA of Petroleum
Industry
• Toxicity • Oil Spills
• Exhaust • VOC
• Acid Rain • Waste oil
• Climate Change

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 Toxicity
• Petroleum is a complex mixture of many components
• Different oils and petroleum related products have
different levels of toxicity.
• Despite varying levels of toxicity amongst different
variants of oil , all petroleum -derived products have
adverse impacts on human health and the ecosystem.

Examples
• Oil emulsions in digestive systems in certain mammals
might result in decreased ability to digest nutrients that
might lead to death of certain mammals.
• Ecosystem food chains can be affected due to a
decrease in algae productivity
• Many compounds found in oil are highly toxic and can
cause cancer (carcinogenic) as well as other diseases.
• Benzene is present in both crude oil and gasoline and is
known to cause leukaemia in humans
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 Exhaust
• In the extraction phase there are emissions of not only
carbon dioxide but various other pollutants like nitrous
oxides and aerosols.
• In the refinement stages of petroleum also contributes
to large amounts of pollution in urban areas

Effects
• A study investigating the effects of oil refineries in
Taiwan . The study found an increased occurrence of
pre-mature births in mothers that lived in close
proximity to oil refineries than mothers who lived away
from oil refineries .
• Fine particulates of soot blacken humans' and other
animals' lungs and cause heart problems or death.
• Soot is cancer causing.

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 Acid Rain
• The combustion process of petroleum , coal , and wood
is responsible for increased occurrence of acid rain.
• Combustion causes an increased amount of nitrous
oxides , along with sulfur dioxide from the sulfur in the
oil
• These by products combine with water in the
atmosphere to create acid rain.
Effects
• The increased concentrations of nitrates and other
acidic substances have significant effects on the pH
levels of rainfall.
• The acid rain has adverse impacts on the larger
ecosystem
• Example: Acid rain can kill trees , acidified lakes and
dead fish.
• Coral reefs are also destroyed from the acidified rainfall
from acid rain
• Acid rain also leads to the corrosion of machinery and 8
structures
Climate Change
• The combustion of petroleum causes an increased
amount of carbon dioxide emissions as well as other
greenhouse gases
• Increase of carbon dioxide results in an increase in
surface temperatures
• The ultimate by-product of oil combustion is carbon
dioxide , however there are other by-products such as
carbon monoxide and nitrates. These by-products react
with the atmosphere to produce ozone and other
greenhouse gases

Effects
• The increased pollution has consequences on global
temperature
• An increased carbon dioxide concentration in the
atmosphere acts as a "blanket" to increased heat

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Oil Spills
• An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum
hydrocarbon into the environment, especially marine
areas due to human activity.
• It is a form of pollution
• Oil spills may be due to releases of crude oil from
tankers, pipelines, railcars, offshore platforms, drilling
rigs and wells, as well as spills of refined petroleum
products (such as gasoline, diesel) and their by-
products, heavier fuels used by large ships such as
bunker fuel, or the spill of any oily refuse or waste oil.
Effects
• Spilt oil penetrates into the structure of the plumage of
birds and the fur of mammals, reducing its insulating
ability, and making them more vulnerable to
temperature fluctuations and much less buoyant in the
water.
• Poisonous for Marine Life and Kill Fishes.
• Spills may take weeks, months or even years to clean up
wasting productive time. 10
Volatile Organic Compounds
• Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are gases or vapors
emitted by various solids and liquids
• They enter directly into the atmosphere having harmful
climatic effects mentioned above.

Effects
• Petroleum hydrocarbons such as gasoline, diesel, or jet
fuel intruding into indoor spaces from underground
storage tanks or brownfields threaten safety (e.g.,
explosive potential)
• Causes adverse health effects from inhalation

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Waste Oil
• Waste oil is oil containing not only breakdown products
but also impurities from use
• Some examples of waste oil are used oils such as
hydraulic oil, transmission oil, brake fluids, motor oil,
crankcase oil, gear box oil and synthetic oil.

Effects
• Many of the same problems associated with natural
petroleum exist with waste oil
• When waste oil from vehicles drips out engines over
streets and roads, the oil travels into the water table
bringing with it such toxins as benzene
• This poisons both soil and drinking water
• Runoff from storms carries waste oil into rivers and
oceans, poisoning them as well.

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Mitigation of
Petroleum Products
• Conservation & • Safety Measures
Phasing Out
• Substitution
• Biomass

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Conservation & Phasing Out
• Design policies to reduce the use of petroleum and
fossil fuels
• Create laws which are designed to eventually phase out
the use of petroleum

Effects
• Cleaner consumption of energy due to opting for
cleaner sources
• Increase the efficiency
• It resolved the issue of imbalanced distribution and
consumption.

Limitations
• High cost of research and development
• Uncertainty of cost and potentially high-risk investments

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Substitution of other energy sources
• Alternatives to petroleum can include using other
“cleaner” energy sources such as renewable energy,
natural gas or biodiesel
• Using corn-based ethanol might be an alternative to
using petroleum.
• Renewable energy alternatives also exist. These include
solar energy, wind energy, geothermal and
hydroelectricity as well as other sources
• Natural gas is also seen as a potential alternative to oil.
Natural gas is much cleaner than oil in terms of
emissions.

Limitations
• In order to switch from crude oil to natural gas there are
technical and network changes that need to occur
before the implementation can be complete

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Use of Biomass
• Biomass is an organic matter used for fuel.
• Biomass is becoming a potential option as a substitute
for petroleum
• In order for biomass to succeed there needs to be an
integration of different technologies to different
biomass feedstock in to produce different bio products
• Incentives for biomass are a decrease of carbon dioxide
, need for a new energy supply and need to revitalize
rural areas

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Safety measures
• There is also a potential to implement many
technologies as safety measures to mitigate against
safety and health risks of the petroleum industry
• These include measures to reduce oil spills , false floors
to prevent gasoline drips in the water table and double-
hulled tanker ships
• A relatively new technology that can mitigate air
pollution is called bio-filtration
• Bio filtration is where off-gasses that have
biodegradable VOCs or inorganic air toxins are vented
out through a biologically active material
• There are lower costs and environmental benefits
include low energy requirements

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ThankYou
Presented by
\
HAMZA SAAD