A study of the natural radioactivity of the petroleum waste

The aim of this study is to detect the radioactivity of radionuclides and measure the specific activities and the uranium concentration in (30) samples of crude oil and oil waste were brought from three oil locations
Dora refinery, Bijie refinery, and north field of al-Rumaila. The measurements in this study were done by using two techniques: 1- Gamma rays spectroscopy system was used to measure the specific activity for radionuclides. This system is consist of high purity of germanium detector (HPGe) with personal computer as multi channel analyzer (MCA) that computerized to plot the radioactive spectrum and compute the specific activities of the radionuclides. There are seven radionuclides are detected: (Bi-214, Ra-226, TI-208, Bi-212, Pb-212, K-40, and Cs-137), these radionuclides included; two radionuclides (Bi-214,Ra-226) belong to the U-238 series, three radionuclides (TI-208, Bi-212, Pb-212) belong to Th-
232series, one natural radionuclide (K-40), and one artificial radionuclide (Cs-137). For Dora refinery samples, the averages of specific activities of (Bi-214, Ra-226) were (7.79, 16.08) Bq/kg respectively, the averages of specific activities of (TI-208, Bi-212, Pb-212) were (7.95,4.05,5.75) Bq/kg , the average of specific activities of (Cs-137) was (0.64) Bq/kg , the average of specific activities of (K-40) was (99.3) Bq/kg.
For Bijie refinery samples, the average of specific activities of (Bi-214) was (0.39) Bq/kg, the averages specific activities of (Bi-212, Pb-212) were (0.02,0.01) Bq/kg, the average of specific activities of (K-40) was
(2.28) Bq/kg , and three radionuclides (Ra-226, TI-208, and Cs-137) were not appeared in Bijie samples.
2- solid state nuclear track detectors technique (SSNTDs), the uranium concentration determined by using CR-39 track detector and fission fragment track technique, the nuclear reaction used as source of uranium
fission fragment is U-235 (n-f) obtained by the bombardment of U-235 with thermal neutrons emitted from (Am-Be) neutron source with flux (5000 n/cm2.s) for seven days, the concentration were calculated by
comparison with the standard samples. The uranium concentration in Dora refinery samples were ranged
between (0.95-3.34) ppm with average (2.03) ppm for solid samples and (1.25) ppm for liquid samples.
The uranium concentration in Bijie refinery samples were ranged from (0.42-1.46) ppm with average (0.55) ppm in the solid samples and (1.24) ppm in the liquid samples. The uranium concentration in the north field of al-Rumaila samples were ranged between (1.78 - 6.35) ppm with average (3.37) ppm. From above results, we concluded that the maximum of uranium concentration was found in the north field of al-Rumaila in Basrah governorate, these results are agreement with the permissible limit from IAEA. The maximum of external equivalent dose rate from NORM in oil waste was found in the north field of al-Rumaila was (0.30) mSv/y less than the permissible limit from IAEA which is (1) mSv/y for the public.