Engen Refinery meets Trade Permit Requirements

Monday, 31 August 2009

Durban's Wentworth-based Engen oil Refinery has made dramatic strides in improving its environmental performance, particularly with regard to controlling atmospheric sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions, since the issue of its five-year trade permit – which expires at the year end.

Some of the most ambitious environmental performance targets ever set in the country were written into the agreement – the first of its kind – when it was signed in December 2004. Engen Refinery GM Willem Oosthuizen says achieving these targets was "always going to be a tough task, and we were roundly criticised where we've fallen short of them, but we are proud to say that we have now been compliant with the permit requirements for two consecutive years.

"The unfortunate fact is that Engen Refinery is often viewed negatively, simply because it is measured against tougher standards than other organisations, even though they may emit more pollutants."

Indeed, the refinery can justifiably claim an environmental performance that compares favourably with many in the First World, he adds.

Perhaps its most significant achievements have been in the mutually-agreed priority area of reducing SO2 emissions – these have been reduced by 27% in five years, and 77% over the past decade.

Oosthuizen says Engen has applied to renew the permit for a further term.

His comments coincide with the presentation of the refinery's 2008 Annual Performance Report to eThekwini Municipality, the issuing authority of the permit. The detailed report (60-plus pages), is one of the permit requirements.

Features of the 2008 report include:

• The refinery's daily SO2 emissions peaked at 14 tons per day, and consistently averaged between 11 and 13 tons/day – well within the 19 tons limit (historically this compares with 46.5 tons/day in 1998);
• The total number of refinery-attributed ten-minute ambient SO2 exceedences was kept down to 17 for 2008 (permitted 35 for the year). (Exceedences stemming from factors beyond the refinery's control were excluded – most notably power cuts and unpredictable electricity supplies at certain times of the year;
• The refinery was well within its Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) limit of 8 tons/day – peaking at just over 6 tons/day (February 08);
• Particulate matter emissions came well within the 1 ton/day limit agreed with the city, and technology has been installed to bring it down further;
• Ongoing independent fence line monitoring of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) showed substances like benzene, toluene, xylene and ethyl benzene all to be well below both World Health Organisation- (WHO) and European Commission (EC)-recommended limits – the refinery is, nevertheless engaged in an ongoing VOC reduction programme;
• There were 23 reportable flaring incidents during the year – all were investigated and reports submitted to eThekwini Health.

Other features of the year have included the refinery attaining full ISO14001 certification, showing that it has effective environmental management systems in place, and people committed to minimising Engen's impact on the environment.

Engen Refinery is also proud of its newly-implemented voluntary integrated waste management plan, that not only strengthens the "cradle-to-grave tracking process", but also focuses on recycling where there have been several impressive successes.

Further worth noting was the successful commissioning of a new dedicated call centre to process queries on a systematic basis, where all calls are logged, the issues investigated and the original caller given a response.

Engen contributes more than R500 million in direct and indirect taxes, R477 million through salaries and wages, and indirectly adds over R2.4 billion to Durban's household income.