The Art of Analyzing Mercury in the Oil & Gas World | Occupational Safety & Health

Potential Exposure to Mercury

Many forms of mercury exist in the oil and gas world, such as elemental mercury, mercury chloride, mercury sulfide, and alkylmercury. Mercury behaves differently when it is mixed with hydrocarbon. This form of Hg tends to exhibit lower vapor pressure than when it does in ambient air.

Some forms of mercury are emitted to the atmosphere via glycol overhead. It contributes to air pollution, creating a higher risk of workers' exposure to mercury through inhalation. Activities such as cleaning, decommissioning pipelines, and processing equipment can cause close contact of workers with contaminated pieces. Hot work like grinding and blasting on mercury-contaminated metal pieces will release mercury vapor. This activity is even more hazardous if the area is confined or has poor ventilation.

Exposure to mercury can be divided into:

Non-routine Exposure

• Welding, polishing
• Decontamination during Turnaround (TA) via steam or chemical cleaning
• Handling a particular crude oil shipment with high mercury content
• Spillage cleanup
• MRU Changeout
• Handling of mercury waste

Routine Exposure

• Daily or weekly sample collection for laboratory testing
• Perform routine cleaning
• Perform routine maintenance

Multi-tong Approach to Ensure Worker's Occupational Safety & Health

Many authorities such as ACGIH, OSHA, NIOSH have set occupational exposure limits to protect the workers. Many companies have established multi-tong approaches to reduce mercury contaminants, such as acceptance of criteria for crude oil feedstock, processing plants design and engineering control, procedure control, and decontamination of equipment if needed.

The risk of mercury exposure has been mostly reduced and controlled by safety measures such as suitable Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Medical surveillance such as analyzing workers' urine, blood, and hair samples are in place to better assess the workers' long-term exposure. The measurement of the Time Weighted Average (TWA) has been well established to evaluate the long-term exposure and risk of the workers. In addition to TWA, knowing the real-time mercury reading in the environment prompts faster workers' evacuation if the mercury in the air reading exceeds the Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL). ?

?EMP-3 is NIC's 3rd generation of Field-Portable Mercury Survey Meter that is designed for on-site measurement of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) in workplace ambient air for occupational safety, health, and hygiene.

2 Simple Steps to Measure Elemental Hg from Your Environment

EMP-3 Operating Principle

#1 - With the built-in pump in EMP-3, once the user starts measuring, air sample will be taken in through the probe into the system.

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# 2 - When the mercury analytes enter the detector, measurement takes place at the wavelength of 253.7nm and mercury concentration will be calculated and instantly displayed on the LCD screen.

Features of EMP-3

With an accurate estimate of the mercury situation within the processing plants and its impact on workers' safety and health, the hazards of mercury can be controlled and managed without affecting the operation, ensuring the operation sustainability and product stewardship eventually.?

Read more about EMP-3: https://www.hg-nic.com/emp-series/

Reference:

1. https://www.dosh.gov.my/index.php/competent-person-form/occupational-health/regulation/guidelines/chemical/615-01-guidelines-on-mercury-management-in-oil-and-gas-industry-2011?path=guidelines/chemical
2. https://www.ourenergypolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Mercury.pdf