June 7, 2012

Dr. Ebere Iroadu Abu Dhabi University Al Ain, RN: Group Report Submission Dear Dr. Ebere, We are sending our group project which is due on June 13, 2012 as you ordered. The report is attached with the title To Study the Quantity of Petrol Consumed by the Abu Dhabi University Students. In this research, a quantitative analysis has been done on the amount of petrol consumption done by Abu Dhabi University students. The objective of this study includes consumption rates and awareness levels of students. This study also discusses further trend of energy track in the future. If there are any queries related to the project, feel free to contact Mr. Haider at his email. Sincerely,

Zia and group Group 5

To Study the Quantity of Petrol Consumed by the Abu Dhabi University Students
2011 - 12

ENG-201
Dr. Ebere Iroadu Group 5 (Electrical& Arch) Haider Naveed Mohammed Malik Maged Moshen Al Sharafi Mohammed Arif Mohammed Ziauddin 1011973 1010228 1010947 1029255 1028625

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We have undertaken a lot of efforts in completing this project. However, this huge task would not be achievable without the favorable responses from all the subjects and colleagues. We, hereby, share an earnest regard with all of those who contributed with their efforts. A major share of gratitude is owned by our Professor, Dr. Ebere Iroadu, the only Director and Monitor of this report. She has guided us in a kind and gentle way throughout the study, and she took efforts in revising and correcting the errors and faults whenever it was necessary. We express our acknowledgment to the dean of Abu Dhabi University, Al Ain campus for lending us an opportunity to carry out this task and also our parents who did encourage us a lot in overcoming all the hurdles. Taking the ADU students in concern, they are the subjects of study in this report. We, all the group members, appreciate their interest in lending us their attention and time. Finally, the group members did an excellent job as they shared, worked, and made up the entire research with easiness and simplicity. The cooperation and motivation of the members helped in concluding this assignment.

CONTENTS

I.

ABSTRACT

II.

INTRODUCTION..

III.

LITERATURE REVIEW..

IV.

RESEARCH METHOD.

V.

FINDINGS...

VI.

DISCUSSIONS

VII.

CONCLUSIONS.

VIII. RECOMMENDATIONS.

IX. X.

REFERENCES. APPENDICES...

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ABSTRACT
In our daily life, we spend a large amount of money on different things, but this study concerns the spending of money on petrol by Abu Dhabi University students. This study was conducted on a sample of 100 students selected from Abu Dhabi University, Al Ain campus. This study observes that the majority of students have a positive attitude towards drying out of petrol and they have already made themselves ready to use other energy sources like solar, and CNG. This study helped us to point out the upcoming signs of resource availability by serious questioning of students. This research demonstrates that students are conscious about the limited availability of oil resources, but they do not show any positive response towards conservation of these resources.

INTRODUCTION

As we glanced at the history of mankind, we note that our ancestors kept changing their location from one place to another. Traveling at the pace of animals made them grow weary due to caravan movement and sluggish speed. Due to extreme climatic interventions, movement became very difficult. Over the years, after serious experiments and failures, scientists finally invented a fuel pumping device called engine. After the discovery, source of power was necessary for the application of this device. With the improvements in technology, it was possible to know the estimate of entire oil reservoirs around the world and recently, the marketing eye shifted from pre-dominating oil abundant countries like China to Middle East countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq etc. Due to excessive car manufacturing every year, rate of petrol production has to be increased as per the increase in demands. As this energy source is non-renewable, the countries which face fuel shortage often turn to the oil rich countries for support. Taking the concept of previous statement, UAE is facing a similar trend due to its rapid development of economy and architecture as a result of enormous oil assets. Apart from living sustenance, fossil fuels should be exploited with cautious concern lest they dry out to zero and leaves the local citizens nowhere in the desert.

As most ADU students own a car, the group was interested to work on the petrol utilization by the ADU community and the way they held their perspectives regarding the depletion of fuel resources in THE UAE. Being students of ADU, we are interested to find out how the students of ADU add up their share to this insensitive act of petrol exploitation and the reasons behind it. Firstly, we wanted to know how far the students are aware about over utilization of fuel. Secondly, do they worry about taking appropriate initiatives in order to reduce the dependency? Thirdly, are they ready to step down from their extravagant lifestyles as a part of the awareness 5

campaign? Finally, we wanted to focus on the outlook of students regarding the raising of a UAE national petroleum awareness club.

LITERATURE REVIEW
According to web articles (khanfer, 2009), OPEC failed to stabilize the export of fuel resources around the world in 2007, as a result of which the Middle East area was put to pressure to maximize the production of crude oil and natural gas. In the same year, the demand for natural gas rose to 25000BCF, whereas before the production was only 1500BCF (khanfer, 2009). This acute year resulted in the ongoing peak difference between the consumption and production rates across the UAE (DORE, 2007). Giving a thought to the 2007 energy crisis, factors like wastage of energy, excessive usage of appliances were brought into consideration. According to the Head of Environment Ministry UAE, the city of Dubai was censured for its highest waste production around the world (Aburawa, 2011). Dr. Ahmed in his interview by Emirates 24/7 stated that almost 80 percentage of the carbon footprint of UAE is resulted from petrol and water wastage (Aburawa, 2011). On a statistical scale, around 11.3 million tonnes of waste was carved out in Dubai (Aburawa, 2011).

The current rate of oil production in UAE is 2.58 MBPD (Kumar, 2012), and by continuing on the current pace with additional demands in the future, it is forecast that by 2015, UAE will be forced to increase their production level by 6bn barrels to 3.20 BBPD (Anonymous, 2012). In 2009, the estimated amount of natural gas in UAE was 210 TCF and is expected to cross only 100 more years at this pace (Butt, n.d).

The third WFES recognized that there are some alternate sources of energy in the UAE which can be harnessed and made ready for consumption like geothermal, tidal, solar etc. which are abundantly available in the UAE (McCallum, 2010). For the past seven years, 40 ventures were introduced with government investments in order to harness the amount of CO2 present in the air to make it efficient for oil extraction (McCallum, 2010). As a part of awareness campaigns and waste reduction policies of oil usage, the government of the UAE intentionally inflated the unit prices of oil by 28 percent in 2010 so that the nation would decelerate the pace of petrol consumption and start switching to other applicable sources of energy (McMeans, 2010).

When taking the limitations of unsustainable energy into consideration, students of the UAE are required to contribute a lot in development of alternate ways to reduce the dependency on oil. More than 130 students collaborated together in a group to raise the consciousness of local people which was supported by many branded companies in order to boost up their creative skills (Quinn, n.d). Students of BITS Pilani Dubai initiated themselves by adding solar panels and automatic flush toilets in their university by which they achieved 13 percent reduction in electric consumption, 39 percent water conservation, 17,000 tons of carbon footprints cutback, and an overall of Dhs.17million savings all around the campus (Anonymous, n.d).

METHODOLOGY
This research was carried out through our questionnaire as a part of our survey. The questions were generated by the group and corrected for accuracy and clarity. The population of this research was students of Abu Dhabi University and the sample size of nearly 100 students was considered enough to know what amount of money they pay out weekly for petroleum. To conduct the survey efficiently, we divided our work of distributing questionnaires equally among the five members of the group, and each member distributed 20 questionnaires. That helped us complete our work with simplicity. Moreover, we had our meetings frequently which came as a plus point during collecting the survey questionnaire. After accumulating the raw data, we used Microsoft Excel to find out what would be the mean, mode, median, mid-range, variance, and standard deviation. The results found were, mean of 205.25 which demonstrates the average amount of weekly expenditure on petrol, mode of 100 that illustrates most of the students expend 100dhs per week on petrol, median of 137.5, mid-range of 750, standard deviation of 246 ,and variance of 60635.6 confirming how the data varies.

FINDINGS
In this sample, the most startling fact was that only 1 student and his family was without a car and the highest number of cars that a student and his family owns were 13 cars. The minimum amount of money paid out for petrol weekly was 50dhs and the maximum by one student was 1500dhs. It was observed mainly that students who are local citizens usually travel long distances and tend to pay out more money on petrol. When the concern in the survey was about the limitations of petrol or drying out of petrol reserves, most of them answered positively admitting a responsible attitude towards using alternative energy resources like solar, electrical, CNG etc. whereas some of them agreed to compromise with public transport. In addition, many students responded that they were willing to convey or spread the message of drying out petrol resources and depleting environments. Some students agreed on conveying the message online through social media, while others were in favor of persuading friends face to face. Some others agreed on participating in awareness campaigns or motivating friends to use public transport. According to students, U.A.E needs a National Energy Conservation Club. 7

DISCUSSION
With a lot of students showing the same trend they gained our attention and the trend is they do not show any interest on making up their mind for this serious concern about consuming petrol in large amount ineffectively. If this trend continues, where will the petrol end up? What situation is to be faced when they end up losing money and a good source of energy? What if students try to stop using their private cars and start using the public transportation? We are trying to study the special effects of these situations and sort out what consequences will lead to be the best. When we asked the students about petrol consuming, at first some of them showed a negative attitude towards this topic and considered it as not important because they do not know how much importance this source has on our lives. However, most of them answered positively admitting a responsibility towards accommodating alternate energy sources like solar energy, electrical, and CNG suppliers whereas some of them agreed to compromise with public transport. All they do is keep thinking and focusing on how they can move from place to another place with increased speed and reduced time without giving a least concern to the environmental issues. However, the problems dont end here because not only students are using the cars, also the whole community and the public peoples. So we tried to acquire suggestions on how can we make the people aware about this demand seeking concern? Some students agreed on conveying the message online or persuading friends while some others agreed on motivating friends to use public transport.

CONCLUSION
All in all, we should know that the petrol and the other depleting resources are never inexhaustible, and they are very necessary for this development of modern life. This research helped us to find out the future signs of resource availability by serious interrogations with students. It is necessary to invent an efficient alternate replica of petroleum source and harness them to ease the dependency on crude oil which will relieve progress pressure as much as possible. Taking this step is not as easy as flow of water, for it requires steady determination and concentration from the upcoming generation to boom the world of energy with a new alternative source of energy. We, therefore, advice students, families and public people to be conscious about flickering thought of energy revolution.

RECOMMENDATIONS
This research concludes that students are aware of the limited availability of oil resources but they do not show any positive response towards conservation of these resources. This result is assumed by studying only a handful number of students in ADU and it is not feasible for all the students of UAE. Due to limitations of time, further tools could not be implemented where they were absolutely necessary. We suggested that readers focus on survey questions as they cover various dimensions which were previously assumed to be part of the research aim. Later, as the conflicts grew, several primary objectives had to be dropped. The survey provides a base for many other aspects like vehicle petrol consumption rates, distance fuel relationship etc. which can be subjects for unusual studies. Finally, a great deal of transparency is maintained in the study which can be related to the work quality and skill collaboration. Statistical figures obtained in this study can be assumed as a domain for further hollow specification of the research.

REFERENCES

Aburawa, A. (2011, 3 30). Dubais Waste amongst the Highest in the World. Retrieved 5 28, 2012, from http://www.greenprophet.com: http://www.greenprophet.com/2011/03/dubaihigh-waste/ Anonymous. (2012). ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. Retrieved 6 6, 2012, from http://www.scribd.com: http://www.scribd.com/doc/18926837/AcknowledgementFormat-for-the-Project-httpprojectscollegeblogspotcom Anonymous. (2012, 3 12). UAE oil reserves to fall nearly 6bn barrels by 2016: report. Retrieved 5 28, 2012, from http://www.emirates247.com: http://www.emirates247.com/business/energy/uae-oil-reserves-to-fall-nearly-6bn-barrelsby-2016-report-2012-03-12-1.447891 Anonymous. (n.d). Students in Dubai awarded for conservation efforts. Retrieved 5 28, 2012, from http://www.edarabia.com: http://www.edarabia.com/27025/students-in-dubaiawarded-for-conservation-efforts/ Butt, G. (n.d). Oil and Gas in the UAE. Retrieved 5 28, 2012, from http://www.geopowers.com: http://www.geopowers.com/energie/sites/default/files/images/PDF%20-%20VAE.pdf DORE, L. (2007, 8 22). Opec urged not to make further production cuts. Retrieved 5 28, 2012, from http://www.khaleejtimes.com: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/business/2007/August/b usiness_August426.xml&section=business&col= khanfer. (2009, 11). United Arab Emirates. Retrieved 5 28, 2012, from http://www.khanfer.com: http://www.khanfer.com/Middle%20East%20Energy%20Reports/UAE/uae_full.htm Kumar, H. M. (2012, 2 23). UAE's January average oil output at 2.58m bpd. Retrieved 5 28, 2012, from http://gulfnews.com: http://gulfnews.com/business/oil-gas/uae-s-januaryaverage-oil-output-at-2-58m-bpd-1.984910 9

McCallum, J. (2010, 2 9). What the future holds for alternative energy. Retrieved 5 28, 2012, from http://www.thenational.ae: http://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/what-thefuture-holds-for-alternative-energy McMeans, C. S. (2010, 7 13). Petrol up for second time in three months. Retrieved 5 28, 2012, from http://www.thenational.ae: http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/petrol-up-forsecond-time-in-three-months Mishra, A. (2010, 5 3). Sample Acknowledgement of Project Report. Retrieved 6 6, 2012, from http://www.mbanetbook.co.in: http://www.mbanetbook.co.in/2010/05/sample-projectreport-acknowledgement.html Quinn, O. (n.d). 130 Emirati students develop ideas to save water, energy and reduce waste. Retrieved 5 28, 2012, from http://www.edarabia.com: http://www.edarabia.com/22494/130-emirati-students-develop-ideas-to-save-waterenergy-and-reduce-waste/

APPENDIX
The questionnaire used in this research for surveying the ADU students includes the following questions.

Questionnaire
Q1. How many cars does your family maintain? No Cars 2 Cars ) Q2. Was fuel efficiency a factor in choosing the type of car you have? ______________________________________________________________________________ Q3. Do you travel long distances often? Yes No 1 Car More than 2 Cars (Specify-

Q4. How much do you spend weekly on petrol? Specify DHS:_________________________

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Q5. Do you use public transport? Yes No

Q6. Are you aware of limitations of petrol resources? Yes No

Q7. If the petroleum reserves dry out, how are you going to handle the transportation crisis? Specify ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Q8. Do you support initiating awareness towards saving energy? ______________________________________________________________________________

Q9. If your answer is yes to Q#7 how do you intend to do that? Persuading friends Spread the message online Q10. How eco-friendly is your car? V4 V6 Participate in awareness campaign Motivate your friends to use public transport

Hybrid / Electric V8

Q11. Does UAE need National Energy Conservation Club? Yes No

Q12. Would you support increasing fuel prices to encourage people to buy fuel efficient cars or use public transportation? _____________________________________________________________________________ Q13. Do you think this issue can be raised to achieve global attention? Yes No 11