An assessment of occupational exposure to noise in western European oil refineries

This report summarizes personal noise exposure measurements,collected for workers in Western European oil refineries. The data are collated by different refinery process operations and offsite activities, and the 1982-84 and the 1985-88 data are separated for comparison. It is concluded that noise exposure was lower in 1985-88 than1982-84. However, many noise exposures still exceed specified action levels in the EC Noise Directive (86/188/EEC) a t which the implementation of effective hearing conservation programmes is required.