Varianou - Mikellidou, Cleo

2021, Boustras, Georgios, Dimopoulos, Christos, Varianou - Mikellidou, Cleo, Chizubem Benson, Christos D. Argyropoulos

The workplace's burden remains a significant concern to workers in the oil and gas industry, where workers are continually exposed to various kinds of occupational risks. The study aimed to identify the different health hazards and their sources across the oil and gas industry to determine the risks associated with health hazards. Methods: A qualitative approach was employed to identify the different hazards connected with the operational environment. A total of 1000 questionnaires were distributed randomly across the various departments in the Nigerian oil and gas industry, and 327 returned to the research team. Analysis of data was carried out using the SPSS. Results: The result shows that ergonomic hazards were found to be most predominant among the hazards assessed in the industry. Ergonomic hazards are 30%, physical hazards 26%, chemical hazards 23%, psychosocial hazards 18%, and biological 3%. Conclusion: Considering the aims of this study, the hazards that exposed workers to ill-health were identified with their sources in the oil and gas operational environment. Some of the health hazards were identified to have short-term health effects on workers, such as headaches, skin burn, eye and skin irritation, and rashes. In contrast, musculoskeletal disorders, respiratory disease, leukaemia, asphyxiates, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease are long-term health effects caused by other hazards. Recommendations: Adequate supervision should be imposed on the workers in their workplace, proper hazards assessment should be conducted in the industry, and compulsory medical testing should be carried out on workers always to know their health status.

2021, Boustras, Georgios, Dimopoulos, Christos, Varianou - Mikellidou, Cleo, Chizubem Benson, Christos D. Argyropoulos

The process industry operates in high risks and hazardous environments that impose significant risks on workers' lives, assets-loss, and operational environments. Using the digitalized method for analyzing risk in the process operations to identify and evaluate risk emanated in the working environment is considered as a possible way of providing a warning of deviating conditions in the process environment. From this research, we realized that digitalizing process operations are highly relevant to the process industry, due to challenges such as fire, explosion, and toxic release to the environment. However, the focus on risk analysis using a digitalized method is to support decision-making by assessing and analyzing the risks associated with the operation, designing a technical system, and estimating the industry's accident and possible controlling measures. This research provides a viable solution to the process industry with risk and hazard in their process environment by installing an alarm system on the processing plant, which will give early warning information of unforeseen risk. Some of the benefits of digitalized process operations are the virtually eliminating transcription risk and hazard from the operational environment, the increased copy factor of understanding between process operation and workers, as well as to provide an early warning deviation that will interrupt the operating system. This research's findings have identified a valuable process of the digitizing process industry for useful risk analysis and protection of the operational environment.

2021-08, Chizubem Benson, Christos D. Argyropoulos, Dimopoulos, Christos, Boustras, Georgios, Varianou - Mikellidou, Cleo

The workplace's burden remains a significant concern to workers in the oil and gas industry, where workers are continually exposed to various kinds of occupational risks. The study aimed to identify the different health hazards and their sources across the oil and gas industry to determine the risks associated with health hazards. Methods: A qualitative approach was employed to identify the different hazards connected with the operational environment. A total of 1000 questionnaires were distributed randomly across the various departments in the Nigerian oil and gas industry, and 327 returned to the research team. Analysis of data was carried out using the SPSS. Results: The result shows that ergonomic hazards were found to be most predominant among the hazards assessed in the industry. Ergonomic hazards are 30%, physical hazards 26%, chemical hazards 23%, psychosocial hazards 18%, and biological 3%. Conclusion: Considering the aims of this study, the hazards that exposed workers to ill-health were identified with their sources in the oil and gas operational environment. Some of the health hazards were identified to have short-term health effects on workers, such as headaches, skin burn, eye and skin irritation, and rashes. In contrast, musculoskeletal disorders, respiratory disease, leukaemia, asphyxiates, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease are long-term health effects caused by other hazards. Recommendations: Adequate supervision should be imposed on the workers in their workplace, proper hazards assessment should be conducted in the industry, and compulsory medical testing should be carried out on workers always to know their health status.