Site Suitability Assessment for Petroleum hubs and Oil retail assets in the Jomoro District: A Hybrid Approach using Fuzzy AHP and VIKOR Method

Abstract

Petroleum Infrastructure is indispensable considering the current local and global energy demands, however explosions from such establishments often cause loss of lives and properties within the surrounding communities thereby posing great concern to government and the citizenry. This condition calls for research that would provide meaningful solutions to mitigate this menace. Unlawful siting of oil refineries, petrochemical plants, berthing terminals, pipelines, storage terminals, oil and gas retail assets results from non-consideration of environmental impact on growing human population, competition for customers and lack of enforcement of energy standards. The study aims to employ a multifaceted approach comprising of suitability, proximity and spatial statistical analysis in assessing viable areas for developing petroleum hubs in the district. This study further investigated the efficiency of the method and level of compliance to standards set by the Ministry of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Town and Country Planning Department through validation using the newly acquired land for petroleum hub and existing filling stations in the study area. Primary and secondary data were used for the study. The primary data consist of locations of oil and gas filling stations picked with the Garmin handheld GPS and surveyed boundary of the land. The secondary data was obtained from the Survey and Mapping division of the land commission of Ghana. It comprises of topographic data, geology and soil maps from which soil types, lithology, roads networks, water bodies, terrain slope and land use features of the area were extracted and used. The dataset was reclassified and weighted using Fuzzy AHP and VIKOR. Spatial analyses were carried out using ArcGIS software to show areas suitable or otherwise for siting petroleum hubs in the study area. Results shows 67.44% of the area are highly suitable for establishment of petroleum hubs, 32.33% of the area falls within moderate suitability zones whereas the least suitability zones occupied 0.23% of the total area. The newly acquired government land for the petroleum hub project fell within the highly suitable zone confirming the validity of the studies in comparison with studies from field experts via environmental impact assessment. The proposed petroleum hub covered areas dominated by very high and high area suitability for its establishment constituting 75.9 km2 (90.3%) of its entire area whereas the moderate suitability zones constituted 8.2 km2 (9.7%) of the remaining areas. Towns situated in very high areas includes; Bakakole Nkwanta, Ahobre, Nawule, Allowule, Tikobo No.1, Edu, Damofu, Ave lenu and Ebonloa, Mpatabo. High areas comprises of Kengen Kpokezo, Alenda wharf, Tekyinta. Anwonakrom, Nkwamta, Elubo and Agege are among the moderate and low area zones for hub and oil retail assets establishment 75% of the oil retail assets complied with the required set standards whiles 25% defaulted. The integration of GIS techniques with multi-criteria decision analyses has proved to be an effective tool for selecting suitable sites for petroleum hubs, oil retail assets and very useful in determining places of high fire risk for proper planning of the area. It is recommended that the authorities and stakeholders put measures in place to educate, perform site suitability assessment and enforce set standards in establishment of petroleum infrastructure.