INTERRELATIONS AMONG OZONE, ITS PRECURSORS AND METEOROLOGICAL PARAMETERS

Air is one of the basic elements needed for survival of any living things on earth. The quality and cleanliness of air is vital to sustain life and prevent health problems. Air pollution has long been recognized as an international problem as air may move from one place to another without boundaries. A secondary air pollutant, lower ground ozone, brings a threat to humans, plants and animals. According to Awang et.al (2013), there are areas in Malaysia which recorded high number of ozone gas case exceedences. Despite massive and costly control efforts, even countries in Europe and North America still experience severe ozone problems (Wu & Chan, 2001). The increase in human activities, development and urbanization contributes in increasing the ground level ozone. In this study, the interrelations among ozone, its precursors and its meteorological parameters in oil and gas industry is determined. This study is conducted in an oil and gas environment where the data of concentrations of nitrogen oxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone and meteorological parameters such as temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction are obtained from Department of Environment Malaysia. The equipment used at air quality stations is the Aeroqual AQM60 Environmental Station. This instrument is custom built to measure common air pollutants including ozone, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, particulate matter and meteorological parameters. Data is taken from 5 different air quality stations which have been identified closest to oil and gas industry area. 3 years of data was analyzed and modelled using time series analysis. From the analyzed data, the concentration of ozone gas and its precursors at oil and gas industry was found to have exceeded the Malaysian Ambient Air Quality Guidelines (MAAQG) quite a number of times in a year period. It was also concluded that surrounding temperature is related to the concentration of pollutants.