Noise Evaluation in oil and gas Fields and associated risk assessment

Abstract This work investigates the level of noise in oil and gas fields and its impact on the health of the operators, visitors, and trainees, as well as controlling noise within acceptable levels in the workplace by proper measurement. Risk assessment is done to identify the associated hazards of particular activities or tasks in the fields. Sulfur recovery unit (SRU) at a gas processing complex is the case study which consists of three production plants.Many master points were randomly selected, where workers are present. Therefore, in order to sufficiently measure the level of noise, the measurement of the noise level was performed in different periods of time within the years 2014-2017 and was compared with OSHA limits. Results show that most of the gathered noise field data were beyond the permissive limits of OSHA (85 dB). Ishikawa Diagram depicts the analysis of cause and effect of over limits readings which are rotating machines, maintenance activities, steam leakages, fluid flow, and gas flaring.Finally, the risk assessment presents that such workplaces may present a high noise risk score that could harm the workers.