Assessment of Shift Work and Its Health Related Behaviors Among Employees of Petrochemical Company, Saudi Arabia, 2021 (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Shift work has been reported to lead to adverse health effects and is receiving increased attention. OBJECTIVE The study aimed to understand the relationship between shift work schedules and health behaviours among day-shift workers and rotating day-evening-shift workers and to detect the difference between day-shift work or fixed day-shift and rotating day-evening-shift employees. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted among employees of Petrochemical Company during 2021. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. It consisted of two parts demographic data and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28). RESULTS Out of 126 employees, 58 (46.0%) were from group age 41-50 years, 55 (43.7%) were overweight and 41 (32.5%) were obese, 38 (30.2%) were smokers, 99 (78.6%) worked in fixed shift. Two thirds 94 (74.6%) reported 6-8 sleeping hours per day, where 41 (32.5%) reported that they were satisfactory about overall quality of sleep and 40 (31.7%) were somewhat unsatisfactory, 62 (49.2%) reported “playing regular moderate to vigorous exercise”. There was no significant relation between shifts type and general health status (p =0.122). There was a significant association between shift types and the following ; age, BMI, education, nationality, household income, Working experience, Chronic diseases, Frequency of shift work, and Overall amount of sleep per day (p<0.0001, p0.017, p=0.027, p<0.0001, p0.042, p=0.002, p=0.024, p<0.0001, and p=0.044). CONCLUSIONS In the current study, rotating shifts were associated with extra sleeping hours, normal weight and having exercise. There was no significant differences in general health between workers in different shift schedules. Further studies need to be conducted to gather more information in order to decrease the additional health burden allied to non-standard work-schedules.

Health Risk Assessment of Toxic and Harmful Air Pollutants Discharged by a Petrochemical Company in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region of China

Monitoring of toxic and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) in a petrochemical company in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region of China to assess the impact of HAPs on the health risks of workers in the petrochemical company. The samples were tested by solid-phase adsorption thermal desorption/gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HJ734-2014), and the pollutant emission list was obtained. According to the pollutant emission inventory, it can be seen that benzene, toluene and xylene are the main components of toxic and harmful air pollutants emitted by the petrochemical enterprise. The method of combining actual monitoring and CALPUFF model prediction was used to evaluate the impact of the toxic and harmful air pollutants emitted by the enterprise on the health of workers. The risk characterization results show that when benzene is the maximum concentration value predicted by the model, it will pose a carcinogenic risk to the factory workers. Therefore, based on the results of this study, it is recommended not to allow residents to live within the predicted concentration range of the model. The results of this study can enable China’s oil refining industry to better understand the characteristics of pollutant emissions from petrochemical companies in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Moreover, the results of this study can be used as a policy basis for improving the health of workers in petrochemical enterprises, and are of great significance to the protection of public health.

Investigating and Prioritizing Factors Affecting Technology Selection Using Multi Criteria Decision Making Methods in the National Iranian Petrochemical Company

Technology can be considered as the most important factor in changing human experiences. Much of the success of most top companies in the field of competition rests on innovative activities that often rely on technology. On the other hand, defining valid and reliable as well as measurable indicators is necessary in order to make the most accurate decision. This refers to the famous saying that anything that can be measured can be managed. Therefore, using various scientific sources, the present study seeks to identify indicators of appropriate technology selection and then, prioritize them using multi-criteria decision making methods in the National Iranian Petrochemical Company. For this purpose, first important factors have been identified by studying the research literature and utilizing experts’ opinion gathered and aggregated by Delphi method. Then, by these factors have been ranked by screening and final identification through a hybrid approach of TOPSIS and Shannon entropy. According to the obtained results, technology efficiency has the highest priority among the factors which shows that in technology with the highest level of efficiency must be transferred and used in petrochemical industry. The competitive effects of technology have the lowest priority which shows that it is the least impact for technology transfer in this industry, and it need less attention from the industry practitioners

Investigation and Improvement of Standard External Lightning Protection System: Industrial Case Study

In this study, the lightning protection system and grounding system of one plant of the petrochemical industry were investigated, evaluated, and improved. The methods used in this study were rolling sphere and angle protection methods. The grounding system of the building under study was modeled and simulated using ATP/EMTP (Alternative Transient Program/Electromagnetic Transient Program) software. The results show that the external lightning protection system of the prilling tower studied does not adhere to IEC 62305 and IEC 1024-1-1 standards. Moreover, the grounding configuration of the DCS building was not appropriate for protecting sensitive equipment inside. Lightning causes an enormous potential difference between lightning ground rods in the grounding system. Additionally, disabling the existing surge protective device (SPD) causes an increase in the magnitude of Ground Potential Rise at the DCS building. Improvement of the lightning protection system of the prilling tower and DCS building on Plant 1 of this petrochemical company as well as some other recommendations for improvements are proposed. This paper also shows evidence that external lightning protection, internal lightning protection, and the grounding system need to be connected to make an exemplary lightning protection system.

Gaseous Emission from the Combustion of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) from the Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) in Nigeria

Objectives : This study characterizes the gaseous emission from the combustion of PMS of different volumes from Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company.Methods : The E8500 plus combustion analyzer was used for gaseous emission characterization of different volumes. Oxygen (O2), Hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), Oxides of Nitrogen NOx (NO, NO2), Sulphur dioxide (SO2), and Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) were measured using the analyzer. The values were recorded and the descriptive statistics graph was plotted.Results and Discussion : The concentrations for the gaseous emission from the combustion of PMS were 69.85 mg/m3 HC, 117.33 mg/m3 CO, 334 mg/m3 NOx for 10 ml, 58.93 mg/m3 HC, 130.33 mg/m3 CO, 784.33 mg/m3 NOx for 20 ml, 50.20 mg/m3 HC, 84.00 mg/m3 CO, 798.67 mg/m3 NOx for 30 ml, 65.48 mg/m3 HC, 160.33 mg/m3 CO, 850.33 mg/m3 NOx for 40 ml, 87.31 mg/m3 HC, 212.67 mg/m3 CO, 801.33 mg/m3 NOx, 3.67 mg/m3 SO2 for 50 ml. This study shows that CO and HC exceeded the permissible limit for stationary sources while NOx and SO2 were below the permissible limit.Conclusions : Hence, there is a need for rapid response and urgent attention from government and regulatory bodies to develop and implement appropriate policies that will help in reducing the effect. Appropriate measures to control air emissions that may be embarked upon by regulatory bodies include increase in the use of low-emission fuels and renewable fuels such as bio-fuels and introduction of the use of devices with low CO emissions.

Benchmarking, Standard Setting and Energy Conservation of Olefin Plants in Iran

Olefin plants are one of the most energy intensive petrochemical plants in the world [1, 2]. In Iran more than 15% of petrochemical products are olefins and it will increase rapidly during next future, so improvement of energy efficiency in olefin plants is key element in NPC (Iranian National Petrochemical Company) plan for cost reduction and sustainable development. In this paper the energy consumption of existing olefin plants are compared with design condition and also world best technology. This comparison indicates the meaningful gap between operational and best condition. In this study the opportunities of energy saving in olefin plants are investigated using process integration tools and benchmarking. The result of this study indicates there is potential for energy consumption reduction up to 25% in Iranian olefin plants.

Description of a Housekeeping Program as One of the Occupational Safety and Health Programs at Petrochemical Company

Introduction: Non-fatal accidents are estimated to occur in 374 million cases each year and have serious consequences for the productivity of workers. Petrochemical Company, which is a company that operates in the field of fertilizers and other chemicals, needs to conduct an Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) program, one of which is the Housekeeping program. The purpose of this study is to determine the housekeeping program at Petrochemical Company and the application at Amurea II Plant III of Petrochemical Company. Methods: This research was conducted at Petrochemical Company in June 2017. This study used a cross-sectional design. The variables use were the OSH policy, the housekeeping program, the housekeeping procedures, and the applications of housekeeping. The primary data were obtained through direct observation and the secondary data were obtained from the company’s documents. Results: Petrochemical Company has included the housekeeping program in the OSH policy. There are two housekeeping programs at Petrochemical Company, namely daily housekeeping and monthly housekeeping. Also, there are 2 types of procedures in the housekeeping program, namely units that can do the housekeeping program and units that cannot do the housekeeping program. Moreover, the housekeeping program has been implemented in all units, one of which is at Amurea II Plant III Project. Conclusion: The Housekeeping program has been integrated in the company’s policy so that the housekeeping program can be done by all workers both daily and monthly. Housekeeping application has also been implemented at Amurea II Plant III of Petrochemical Company. Keywords: housekeeping procedure, housekeeping program, occupational safety and health policy