Ben Adamson - Principal Engineer Refrigeration Engineering Pty Ltd, NSW Australia

Volatile liquids such as gasoline, naphtha, solvents, BTX and other petrochemicls, crude oil and many others have high vapour pressure and the amount of vapour lost during handling and transfer can be significant. For example, in transferring gasoline into a road tanker, the loss often exceeds 0.1% of the fuel transferred. When volatile liquids are transferred several times in the chain between the wellhead, refinery and the end user, the losses accumulate. These vapour losses are usually flammable, often toxic or carcinogenic, and atmospheric pollutants which contribute to photochemical smog and global warming. They are therefore concerns for safety, health and environmental reasons, and are also an economic loss to the owner