140 Scientifc Papers. Series E. Land Reclamation, Earth Observation & Surveying, Environmental Engineering. Vol. VII, 2018 Print ISSN 2285-6064, CD-ROM ISSN 2285-6072, Online ISSN 2393-5138, ISSN-L 2285-6064 SOIL CONTAMINATION WITH PETROLEUM COMPOUNDS AND HEAVY METALS - CASE STUDY Ion ONUTU, Mihaela TITA Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiesti, 39 Bucuresti Blvd. Ploiesti, Romania Corresponding author email: ionutu@upg-ploiesti.ro Abstract Crude oil, petroleum fuel and oil products represent most environmental contaminant of soil and the common sources of these products are motor fuel station underground storage tanks, home and commercial heating oil storage tanks, fuel distribution centers, refineries, crude oil production sites, and accidental spills. The main target of this paper is the study of the critical soil pollutants in a Romanian refinery area where soil pollution with petroleum products is one of the main sources of soil contamination. The methodology of study is measuring and monitoring of the pollutants and codify soil pollution profile. The chemical analysis of the crude oil-contaminated site included different groups of contaminants: PAHs, BTEX compounds, and heavy metals determined in the soil samples from the investigated area. The analytical procedure to measure petroleum contaminants and the heavy metal concentrations was performed according to standard methods in force: SR ISO 13877:1999, ISO 22155:2011 SR ISO 11047:1999 and ISO 20280:2007, and with the appropriate equipment. The results are shown that there is a plenty of pollutants in the critical situation and higher than standard. Key words: soil contaminated, oil industry, total hydrocarbons, heavy metals, analytical methods. INTRODUCTION Today is widely recognized that the contaminated lands represent a potential threat to human health, and it has led to international efforts to remedy many of these sites, either as a response to the risk of adverse health or environmental effects caused by contamination or to enable the site to be redeveloped for use (Marinescu et al., 2010; Onutu et al., 2010; Diphare, 2014). In refinery, and vicinity of a refinery, the major sources of petroleum contamination are constituted of crude oil and petroleum products spills on soil, leakages from pipelines, underground and surface fuel storage tanks, indiscriminate spills and careless disposal and mismanagement of waste and other petroleum by-products (Onutu, 2010; Onutu et al., 2015; Popa et al., 2016). Petroleum refining processes led to the generation of large quantities of oil sludge consisting of hydrophobic substances and substances resistant to biodegradation. Soil oil contamination is a result of fuel storage tank leakages, crude oil spill sand refinery waste disposal. Such sites often contain organic contaminants including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and petroleum hydrocarbons (Pinedo et al., 2013). The solubility of mentioned compounds, in pure water is low, and they are strongly adsorbed in soils, especially onto terrestrial colloids (Wang et al., 2012; Mulligan et al., 2001). Petroleum fuels and oils are complex mixtures of hydrocarbons and the compositions of these products are made up of several hundred hydrocarbon compounds that could determine the health risk. This is the reason that petroleum fuel or oil contaminated sites have been characterized by two measures; specific indicator compounds called the chemicals of concern (COCs) and by the total of all the petroleum hydrocarbons, called total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH). The indicator COCs had human health risk derived closure levels, but TPH did not have closure levels based upon human health effects (RISC Technical Guide, 2006). Heavy metals constitute an ill-defined group of inorganic chemical hazards, and those most commonly found at contaminated sites are lead (Pb), chromium (Cr), arsenic (As), zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), and nickel (Ni) (Wuana et al., 2011). Pollutants specific, to a former ramp and depot for loading and unloading petroleum products in a Romanian refinery, are total petroleum