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Abstract
The qualities of the environment are adversely affected by the massive activities of the petroleum industry, especially in Nigeria, with a particular reference to the Niger-Delta Area. The use of oil and other natural resources without losses is almost impossible; losses normally occur during exploration, drilling, transportation, processing, storage, and use. Discharging gases, liquids, and solid wastes into the environment threatens the health of the populace and damage the overall qualities of the environment by rendering the farm land and water bodies unusable. This work, therefore, focuses on the development of a predictive model for spreading rate, spreading coefficient, and flow dimensions of experimentally determined physical properties of spilled oil and stream medium. The developed model is simulated and the results obtained are compared with the experimental results. The statistical analyses of the experimental and simulated results show a little variation between them with a correlation coefficient in the range of 0.9938–0.9999 and standard error in the range of 0.25–29.94 depending on the type and volume of oil spilled. The simulated results also indicate that the extent of spread depends on the physical properties of the crude, aquatic environment dimension, exposure time, and quality of oil discharged.