Occupational Hazards from BIR in Selected Crude Oil Production Pipes Storage Locations in Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

Abstract

The study of occupational hazards from BIR in selected crude oil production pipes storage locations in Niger Delta Region of Nigeria has been carried out using two well calibrated radiation monitoring meters (Digilert Tm 100 and Radalert Tm 200). A global positioning system (GPS 76 CSX) was also used to geographically co-ordinate the sampling locations. Measurements were carried out in forty two (42) selected locations in oil producing area of Niger Delta. The following parameters were estimated to determine the level of occupational exposures by crude oil production pipes dealers and customers. The result of the highest exposure rate was observed in Warri Steel Village, Delta State and the lowest value was in Ogunu, Warri, Delta State with respective values of 61.4 and 12.2 µRh-1. The mean exposure rate value for all the test study locations was 19.18 ± 10.25 µRh-1. The absorbed dose values ranged from 106.1 to 533.7nGyhr-1 with mean value of 166.73 ± 89.08 nGyh-1 while the calculated annual effective dose range from 162.71 to 818.23 µSvy-1 with an average value of 255.60 ± 136.57 µSvy-1 and the excess lifetime cancer risk ranges from 0.45 to 2.25 × 10-3 with mean value of 0.70 ± 0.38 × 10-3. All the radiation hazard parameters determined exceeded their respective world safe values. This research work indicated that the crude oil production pipes radioactive scales may have impacted the storage locations radiologically. The elevated radiation hazard parameters observed in this study may pose ill health effects to those working and leaving in the studied locations especially long term ionizing radiation exposure.

Inventory of Occupational Risk from Natural Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORMs) in Soil Samples of the Coastal Region of Nigeria After Six Decades of Oil and Gas Exploration

“…This is an indication of the varying degree of impact of human activities on the soil environment. But these results obtained are in agreement with previous studies on soil and sediments in the oil and gas exploration area of the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria and other soil of solid mineral deposit 1,3,4,26,27,[37][38][39]49 . A comparison of the average radioactivity concentration in soil samples in the oil and gas exploitation activities of the Coastal Region with the control sample (within the same area but without any oil and gas exploration activities) reveals that all soil samples of the studied areas are well above the control samples in the three natural radionuclides investigated.…”

“…Since the accuracy of the quantitative measurements is dependent on the calibration of the spectrometry system and adequate energy, background measurement and efficiency calibration of the system was made possible using Cs-137 standard source from IAEA, Vienna. Spectrum was accumulated for background for 29000 sec at 900 volts to produce strong peaks at gamma-emitting energies of 1461 keV for 40 concentration in accordance with 3,4,27,[45][46][47] . The activity concentrations in Bq kgG 1 of the radio nuclides in the samples were calculated after subtracting decay correction using the expression:…”

“…The human and environmental impact of the exploration activities of these natural resources has been a subject of debate in the national discourse. However, research findings in recent times have revealed that the rural dwellers and oil field workers in the region are continually exposed to radiation hazards from gamma radiation and internal exposure resulting from the inhalation of radon gas from gas flairs, radiation from industrial radiography, automated ionizing radiation gauge, well logging, use of radiotracers in pipes, mapping and evaluation of geological formation [1][2][3][4] . Ironically, most of these studies are restricted to the onshore area of the Niger Delta Region leaving the swamp/coastal areas unreached due to lack of ease of access occasioned by the difficult nature of the terrain.…”

“…The assessment of the levels of environmental and human exposure to radiations from soil and other naturally occurring radioactive materials have been reported in previous studies [21][22][23][24][25] . Literature abound also on research works that have been undertaken to precisely quantify the number of radioactivity levels in different soil and solid minerals found in Nigeria in recent time 1,3,4,26,27 and in some countries of the world for radiation protection [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] have also been conducted in this regard [37][38][39] . It is worth mentioning that investigation on the level of dosage and excess level of radiation in the risk of cancer in this area has been reported in literatures 40,41 .…”

Research Methodology Training for Middle School Teachers to Improve the Quality of Educational Research Proposals

“…The ability of teachers to write scientific papers is in the high category, however, the experience of publishing scientific papers is still low so schools and the government need to create programs to help improve teacher publications (Syamsuddin, 2021). One alternative way to increase the publication of teachers' scientific works is to conduct research in groups and present them in dissemination forums (Kingsley, 2019;Ruiz-Mallén et al, 2021). In addition, according to Stecanela et al (2019), the teacher's efforts to improve scientific writing skills are participating in scientific writing training held by the education office and higher education institutions, through the MGMP group, teachers hold scientific writing guidance in the form of CAR research with the PAK team.…”