Promote crude oil and refined oil terminals and oil tankers VOCs governance

At present, China's VOCs management is in the key stage of comprehensive promotion, gradually from land to water, from fixed sources to mobile sources, to deepen the potential for emission reduction.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Ministry of Transport recently jointly issued the Notice on Promoting the Treatment of Volatile Organic Compounds in Crude Oil Product Terminals and Oil Tankers (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"). The Notice further continues and deepens the previous Comprehensive Treatment Program for Volatile Organic Compounds in Key Industries and proposes crude oil product terminals and oil tankers as important areas for the current treatment of VOCs.

What are the environmental and health impacts of VOC emissions from crude oil and refined oil terminals and tankers? What are the key issues that need to be addressed in oil and gas recovery efforts? The reporter interviewed relevant industry experts.

Promoting VOCs treatment for crude oil product terminals and oil tankers is of great significance

To understand oil and gas recovery efforts, it is important to first understand what oil and gas is.

In recent years, China's ports have completed more than 1 billion tons of oil, gas and their products each year.

Among them, crude oil and refined oil loading operations produce volatile organic compound emissions, the main components of crude oil, refined oil (gasoline, naphtha, aviation kerosene, solvent oil) volatile gases, and mixtures with air and inert gases, collectively referred to as "oil and gas".

According to the "Annual Report on China's Ecological Environment Statistics 2021" released by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the national emissions of VOCs from exhaust gases were 5.902 million tons, and VOC emissions from mobile sources were 2.004 million tons, accounting for 33.9%, more than 1/3, including VOCs from oil storage, transportation, sales, and road motor vehicle emissions.

At present, there is no authoritative data to support the emissions of VOCs from crude oil and refined oil terminals and oil tankers. Calculations have been made by the Scientific Research Institute of the Ministry of Transportation in a research project on cooperative pollution prevention technology for O3 and PM2.5 compound pollution. Each year, ports and tankers volatilize about 100,000 tons of oil and gas (organic gas VOCs).

This means that VOCs emissions from this segment account for 1/20 of the total mobile sources. why is the total amount not large, but the focus of treatment?

Liu Huan, professor at the Institute of Air Pollution and Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, told reporters: "Volatile organic compound control requires comprehensive strengthening of process control and implementation of refined management. Oil storage and transportation is an important process. In addition, volatile organic compounds are highly volatile, involve a wide range of industries, sewage production and emission links, and the characteristics of disorganized emissions are obvious. In fact, it is not easy to calculate accurately in the emission calculation. Therefore, the importance of emissions calculated by different institutions should not be simply judged."

She said that VOCs emissions from oil storage and transportation involving terminals are gathered in several key terminals, especially in the loading and unloading phase of oil tankers. Within a certain spatial and temporal range, they are high-intensity emission sources, which not only affect the air environment, but also directly affect the health of operators involved in the port area and the surrounding residents.

Chen Rongchang, a researcher at the Institute of Water Transport Science of the Ministry of Transport, added specifically about the odor brought by oil and gas. "Due to the high content of hydrogen sulfide and mercaptan sulfur, some imported crude oil and condensate may cause odor pollution and hydrogen sulfide poisoning accidents." Chen Rongchang said.

"Controlling VOC emissions in this area can itself save resources and improve economic efficiency. Since emissions are flammable gases, control can also reduce safety risks. Therefore, the significance is clear, both locally and as a whole." Liu Huan said.

A wide variety of challenges, but determination to treat them and see quick results

The Asian Clean Air Center has previously released "Blue Port Pioneer 2022: A Synergistic Evaluation of Air and Climate in Typical Chinese Ports". The survey shows that in terms of oil and gas recovery device construction, 13 of the 35 typical ports in the evaluation scope have completed oil and gas recovery facilities.

According to the feedback from Huanghua Port, Yueyang Port, Chongqing Port and Foshan Port, there are no terminal berths where oil and gas recovery devices should be installed (only terminals engaged in crude oil and refined oil loading operations should build oil and gas recovery facilities as required, not all terminals should be built). Qinhuangdao Port and Yingkou Port have not yet built oil and gas recovery facilities, and other ports have not responded.

What are the challenges behind the construction of oil and gas recovery facilities at crude oil product terminals?

Chen Rongchang said that oil and gas recovery at crude oil product terminals has gone through a process from encouragement, pilot to mandatory. Existing terminals and vessels comply with the prevailing specifications during construction or construction, but the newly revised national mandatory standards put forward traceability provisions requiring existing terminals for oil tankers over 8,000 tons and oil loading vessels over 10,000 tons to complete oil and gas recovery and put them into service by January 1, 2024.

However, a certain amount of pressure can be traced back to the high construction and usage costs as one of the difficulties. "The construction cost of oil and gas recovery facilities at terminals can reach millions of dollars or even hundreds of millions of dollars, and with the post-operation and management costs, it is difficult to earn income from the investment." Chen Rongchang said.

In addition, he believes that due to factors such as operating qualifications, quality control, and safety risks, oil recovered from oil and gas recovery facilities cannot be used in compliance and can only be disposed of as hazardous waste with high disposal costs.

In this regard, the notice also points out that local governments should raise awareness, strengthen policy support, play a fiscal and financial guidance role, and actively support the construction of terminals, oil tankers oil and gas recovery facilities and the directional use of recovered oil resources to accelerate the treatment of crude oil, refined oil terminals and oil tankers VOCs.

On the other hand, encourage pilot projects and actively support the recycling of recovered petroleum products. Provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) in charge of ecological environment should actively support, under the premise of environmental risk control, to promote oil refining, petrochemical and other industries to replace the recycling of raw materials, belonging to hazardous waste, according to the provincial ecological environment department to determine the plan, the implementation of "point-to-point" directional use permit exemption management, recycled oil is not according to Hazardous waste management, reduce the cost of enterprises.