An Analysis of the Fate and Trajectory Simulation of Bonny Light Crude From The Dangote Single Point Mooring(SPM) Terminal Off the South Atlantic Ocean, Lagos Nigeria

Abstract

Crude oil is predicted to become one of the most detrimental sources of anthropogenic pollution to the marine environment. To meet Nigeria's energy need, Dangote Industries Ltd. was granted licence to build a refinery in the Lekki Free Trade Zone in 2014. There is a significant risk of oil spill from the Single Point Mooring terminal of the refinery as it shares close proximity to the Lekki deep seaport, closeness to the shoreline, sensitive environmental receptors as well as social spots (beaches and resorts). To address this gap, this study aims to design a stochastic model for oil spill prediction for the SPM terminal in order to provide an understanding of the trajectory, fate and uncertainties of spilled oil at different environmental and hydrodynamic conditions. The GNOME software was used to model oil spill trajectory in the SPM terminal while ADIOS2 modelled Bonny light crude weathering characteristics. The best guess solution and the minimum regret analysis shows the possibility of oil beaching on the coastline of Lagos, Edo and Delta State as well as the Gulf of Guinea. The fate simulation for 5 days revealed that evaporation will account for 23% and 27% of oil loss in dry and wet season while dispersion will account for 1.3% and 1.6% in the same time period. Within the same time period, Bonny light crude will form a stable emulsion that will increase the viscosity and density of oil. Also, 66% and 59% of oil was remaining after 5 days, while airborne benzene concentration evaporated in 36 hours and 12 hours in the dry and wet season respectively. The results obtained in this research work suggest that, the window of opportunity need to be utilised by stockpiling equipment and mechanical responders for shoreline clean-up to avoid the oil possibly beaching along the Coastline of Lagos, Edo and Delta state as well as countries on the Gulf of Guinea.