Recently sulfolane has been detected in well water within the town of North Pole, Alaska. A plume was identified in groundwater, originating from a petroleum refinery, and the highest concentration measured in wells outside the refinery was 269 ppb as of January 2011. Due to the contamination, residents were being provided bottled water for use and additional wells were created outside the plum...

Production planning is a very important step in managing the operation of a single refinery and their complexes. Despite its significance, few contributions have been found in literature and the existing ones rely on linear models. Pinto et al. (Comp. Chem. Engng. 24, 2259-2276, 2000), presented a superstructure that represents a general topology and allows the implementation of nonlinear proce...

A cohort study of 14179 current and former Chevron USA employees at the Richmond and El Segundo, California, refineries was conducted. The cohort consisted of everyone working at either refinery for a minimum of one year. The observed mortality of the cohort, by cause, was compared with the expected based on the United States mortality rates, standardised for age, race, sex, and calendar time. ...

The present work examined data obtained during the analysis of Hearing Reduction (HR) of Abadan Petroleum Refinery (Abadan PR) workers of Iran with a history of disease and injuries. To this end, all workers in the refinery were chosen. In this research, the effects of history of disease and injury including trauma, electric shock, meningitis-typhoid disease and genetic illness as well as conta...

PURPOSE Petroleum refinery workers' exposure to the carcinogens benzene and 1,3-butadiene has decreased during normal operations. However, certain occupational groups or events at the refineries still involve a risk of higher exposures. The aim of this study was to examine the personal exposure to benzene and 1,3-butadiene at refinery turnarounds and during work in the oil harbour. METHODS Pe...

Microbial bioremediation of petroleum wastewater by phenol-degrading-bacteria holds promise in circumventing the issue of petroleum-spill related pollution. Herein, biodegradation of petroleum wastewater samples collected from oil refinery site was carried out in a fluidized bed bioreactor by Ca-alginate immobilized biomass of phenol-degrading strains of Bacillus cereus (AKG1 MTCC9817 and AKG2 ...

We present a methodology for automatic corrosion detection in digital images of carbon steel storage tanks and pipelines from a petroleum refinery. The database consists of optical digital images taken from equipments exposed to marine atmosphere during their operational life. This new approach focuses on color and texture descriptors to accomplish corroded and noncorroded surface area discrimi...

We present the prototype omVR, which is a Virtual Reality based safety training system in a petroleum refinery. It provides an advanced technique for personnel safety training and allows users to navigate through the training setup and interact with parts of the refinery. By using a head mounted display a high degree of immersion is achieved. omVR is the implementation of a training scenario, w...