Development of a Comprehensive Trace Evidence Chemical Profiling Database for Forensic Attribution of Petroleum Product Crimes in Nigeria

Petroleum product theft, adulteration, and illegal bunkering result in estimated annual losses exceeding one billion United States dollars to the Nigerian economy, yet forensic chemical investigation of petroleum crime scenes lacks standardised trace evidence profiling protocols, authenticated reference databases, and validated attribution methodologies capable of withstanding judicial scrutiny in Nigerian courts. This study develops a comprehensive trace evidence chemical profiling database for forensic attribution of petroleum product crimes in Nigeria, constituting an original scientific infrastructure contribution to the country's petroleum security governance. Chemical profiling employs a multi-technique platform encompassing gas chromatography-flame ionisation detection for total hydrocarbon fingerprinting, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for diagnostic biomarker profiling (hopanes, steranes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for trace element fingerprinting, multidimensional gas chromatography (GCxGC-ToFMS) for ultra-high-resolution compound identification, and stable isotope ratio analysis for geographic origin discrimination. Reference samples of crude oil from fourteen Nigerian producing fields and processed petroleum products from eight Nigerian refineries and six major import terminals are systematically profiled. Chemometric pattern recognition tools including principal component analysis, partial least squares discriminant analysis, random forest classification, and convolutional neural network models are trained, validated, and tested for source attribution accuracy. An original statistical model for mixture deconvolution, applicable to blended or diluted crime scene samples, is developed and experimentally validated. The database architecture, quality assurance protocols, and chain-of-custody framework are designed to meet international forensic science accreditation standards. This study delivers both a theoretical framework and an operational tool for Nigerian petroleum forensics. Keywords: petroleum forensics, chemical profiling, biomarker fingerprinting, database, petroleum crime Nigeria