1
Introduction

Melissa N. Dunkle1 and William L. Winniford2

1Analytical Science, Dow Benelux, BV, Herbert H. Dowweg 5, Building 446, Hoek, The Netherlands

2Analytical Science, The Dow Chemical Company, 230 Abner Jackson Parkway, Lake Jackson, TX, USA

1.1 Introduction

The oil and gas industry, also known as the petroleum industry, is a global endeavor that encompasses exploration, extraction, refining, transportation, and marketing of petroleum products. The scope of this book is to provide readers with background knowledge on the petroleum industry, for example on how petroleum is sourced and refined, which will then be related to the multitude of analytical techniques required to characterize and quantify the various aspects of petroleum and petroleum-related products, combine with links to environmental impact.

This book has been designed in such a way as to provide a thorough background for students or novices in the industry, but also to provide enough detailed applications and analytical advancements to be useful for experts on the topic.

This book has been divided into six parts to simplify the complexity of the discussed topics for the readers:

• Part 1: Scope
• Part 2: Introduction to the Petroleum Industry
• Part 3: Analytical Techniques Utilized in the Petroleum Industry
• Part 4: Special Cases and Examples Related to the Petroleum Industry
• Part 5: Environmental Analysis
• Part 6: Future Trends in the Petroleum Industry

1.1.1 Petroleum Cycle

Whether we realize it or not, petroleum and petroleum-related products are part of our everyday lives. While petroleum is sourced as a raw material, it is further manufactured into useable materials, such as fuel for automobiles (e.g. gasoline and diesel) or into petrochemicals and chemicals that are further processed into everyday items (e.g. cosmetics, plastics, foams, construction and building materials, etc.). After use, these items are then (ideally) recycled back into the lifecycle to be manufactured into new products; Figure 1.1 shows a general schematic for the petroleum lifecycle.

Figure 1.1 Life cycle of petroleum.

At any point in the lifecycle, care must be taken to avoid environmental contamination, from the sourcing of petroleum, through to ensuring that we all do our part to recycle and avoid contributing to landfill waste. The authors realize that not all materials can be recycled; however, we do want to stress environmental awareness to the reader. Two examples of environmental contamination originating from different phases of the petroleum lifecycle will be discussed before providing an overview of the content of this book.

1.1.2 Well-Known Cases of Environmental Contamination

1.1.2.1 Oil-Drilling Rig Deepwater Horizon

Deepwater Horizon is one of the most well-known oil spills originating from the United States. On 20 April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded and sank in the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico while sourcing crude oil (EPA 2017). In total, 11 workers lost their lives, and more than 4?million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico over a period of 87?days before the Macondo well was able to be capped. The Gulf Coast ecosystem was severely affected and altered by this event, and as a result, the Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities, and Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States Act (RESTORE Act) was signed into law (RESTORE 2015). The RESTORE Act was aimed at restoring the long-term health of the natural ecosystem and economy of the Gulf Coast Region. Additionally, the oil and gas industry identified several learnings from this disaster; firstly, the blowout preventer, which failed in the Deepwater Horizon operation, was in need of improvement, and secondly, there is a need for better deepwater sub-sea intervention capabilities (Griffin 2010).

Even as the spill was still active, cleanup activities were underway. Oil dispersants were used in an attempt to keep the surface oil from reaching the coastline by breaking down the hydrocarbons, and this was the first example where oil dispersants were used underwater. While oil dispersants should not be any more toxic than the oil they are intended to disperse, it was noted in a study by Rico-Martinez that for selected aquatic species (Brachionus manjavacas), the combination of the oil dispersants used in the Deepwater Horizon spill and the Macondo oil showed a synergetic effect for increased toxicity (Rico-Martínez et al. 2013). Even two years after the event, the full impact on the environment, including marine and human life was not fully known. In 2012, a study of the sediment and pore-water from coastal marshes was performed using both gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS), which showed that oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill was still present (Natter et al. 2012). In 2013, GC-MS was used to analyze tar balls washing up on the Alabama coastline; through chemical fingerprinting, it was determined that these tar balls originated from the Deepwater Horizon spill (Mulabagal et al. 2013). It should be noted that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took great measures to ensure that no contaminated seafood reached consumers (Astaiza 2012). As a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill, the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative coordinated scientific research to understand the environmental impact and consequences of oil spills better. Recently, an offering of books have been published on the environmental impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the scientific advancements and learnings attained (Murawski et al. 2020a,b).

As a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill, several improvements have been implemented for offshore oil drilling: sturdier wells, improved blowout preventers, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) on every oil rig, improved preparedness for future blowouts, and improved technology for tracking and controlling spilled oil (Kiger 2012). In terms of sturdier wells, the US Federal Government now requires an engineer to certify that cementing used in offshore drilling can meet expected pressures (DOI 2012), and new stricter specifications for blowout preventers have been published (DOI 2019). The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), part of the US Department of the Interior (DOI), is the leading agency in the United States responsible for implementing these requirements and enforcing that the requirements are met with offshore drilling.

1.1.2.2 Sanchi Oil Tanker Collision

More recently, on 6 January 2018, the Sanchi oil tanker collided with the CF Crystal cargo ship in the East China Sea around 160 nautical miles from Shanghai, China. Immediately following the collision, the Sanchi broke out in fire; none of her 32 crew survived. The Sanchi was carrying 960,000?barrels (130,000?MT) of a natural-gas condensate, plus nearly 2000?MT of fuel to make the commute from Iran to South Korea when the collision occurred, and on 14 January 2018, the Sanchi sank. Satellite remote sensing (SRS) and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Nightfire were used to track the tanker both day and night from the collision to sinking (Sun et al. 2018).

Learnings from this example include the need for better safety training for shipping crews, but also that cleanup technologies need to improve in order to minimize the damages to the environment (Wan and Chen 2018). With the navigation technology available at the time, this collision should have been avoidable; however, human error from both the Sanchi crew and the CF Crystal crew led to the collision. In fact, nearly 80% of all offshore incidents are a result of human error (Bea et al. 1997).

The environmental impact of this spill is different than that of an oil spill, as natural-gas condensate is more volatile than crude oil. Due to this fact, the greatest environmental concern was focused around immediate toxic effects, rather than deposition of the condensate on sediments or polluting beaches (Carswell 2018). As such, focus was placed on analyzing the more toxic components of natural-gas condensate, such as heavy metals and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), in open fishing areas. Heavy metals were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), and GC-MS was used to quantify PAHs, and in seawater, sediments and seafood in the fishing grounds connecting China and Japan, Pb and low molecular weight PAHs were found at high levels (Wang et al. 2019). Additionally, as the Sanchi was ablaze, it was unclear as to how much of the condensate would burn off, how much would evaporate, and how much would go down with the ship. As such, a model was created to track the spread of condensate from the Sanchi spill; refer to Figure 1.2 (Qiao et al. 2019). With the issues observed utilizing dispersants to breakdown the...