scope:

1.1 Scope

Petroleum marketing and distribution facilities include gasoline dispensing facilities, bulk terminals and bulk plants, pipeline breakout stations, and pipeline pumping stations. Evaporative losses of petroleum products from these facilities occur primarily from transfer and storage operations, and from fugitive equipment leaks and spillage. Sources of transfer and storage losses at these facilities include loading and unloading of on-road delivery trucks, rail cars, and marine vessels, and losses from aboveground petroleum storage tanks and underground storage tanks. Many facilities have adopted vapor loss control equipment and practices to reduce hydrocarbon product emissions.

Emission estimating techniques and factors have been developed over recent years to quantify hydrocarbon losses to the air from these sources. Some of the techniques and factors for estimating emissions for petroleum marketing and distribution facilities are found in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA) Publication AP-42 (1996 5th ed. including Supplement B through November 1996) [1]. Emission estimating techniques and factors are the basis for inventories of emissions from petroleum marketing and distribution facilities required by current regulations.

Estimating techniques and factors used in practice should be continually refined and updated. New measurements of emissions are becoming available, improving data sets that support emission estimating procedures. The composition of petroleum products has been changing over recent years, making some previously accepted emission factors invalid. Also, the addition of emission control technology is directly affecting emission characteristics.