Monitoring of volatile organic hydrocarbon and reduced sulphur compound fugitive emissions from an oil sands recovery facility in Northern Alberta

Syncrude Canada is the largest oil sands recovery and upgrading facility in the world. Activities such as mining, extraction, upgrading and waste discharge into large holding ponds provides the potential for substantial fugitive emissions of volatile organic hydrocarbons and reduced sulphur compounds. A detailed study was performed during worst case conditions to evaluate the incremental downwind concentrations potentially arising from site activities. Flux monitoring was coupled with mass transfer modeling and upwind/downwind profiling to evaluate the emission rates from specific sources. Site export due to fugitive sources was measured to be ca. 600 g/s for VOC and 1.9 g/s for H2S. Significant emissions of other reduced sulphur compounds were also found. The main tailings pond (22 sq km) was found to be the major emitter for both classes of compounds. Dispersion modeling using on site meteorological information measured during the study period was coupled with an area source dispersion model to evaluate concentrations at a point 5 km outside the plant boundary, representing the nearest residential community. Concentrations predicted (and measured) for VOCs and reduced sulphur compounds were at low μg/m3 and ng/m3 levels, respectively