What are the common occupational hazards in oil and gas production sites?

In the process of receiving, storing and distributing crude oil or crude oil products, the most common occupational hazards that oil depot workers are exposed to are petroleum hydrocarbons, benzene, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), noise, high temperature, low temperature, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and so on. In severe cases, it can cause acute poisoning, hypoxia and suffocation.

Crude oil is mainly composed of various hydrocarbons (mainly alkanes, aromatics and cycloalkanes). Volatilization of crude oil contains human carcinogen benzene. Although the benzene content is very low, long-term exposure will damage the occupational health of oil depot staff.

The content of hydrogen sulfide in crude oil is also very low, but due to the large amount of crude oil stored in the oil depot, hydrogen sulfide is easy to accumulate at the bottom of the storage tank, and the local concentration may be high when water is contained.

When the oil feed pump, reflux pump, outlet pump, boiler room, fan and other equipment are running, and when the storage tank and oil pipeline are heated, the oil depot staff may be exposed to the occupational hazards of noise.

Oil depot staff may be exposed to occupational hazards such as high temperature and low temperature during inspection, open-air operation and maintenance.