Light hydrocarbons vaporize to the space between crude oil interface and roof of the storage tank during loading of crude oil tankers in marine oil terminals. When crude oil is loaded to the tank, these hydrocarbons are vented into the atmosphere which is considered as a main source of emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in oil terminals. VOCs emitted from the crude oil not only create severe air pollution problems but also a considerable amount of valuable hydrocarbons are wasted to the atmosphere. On the other hand, VOCs are flammable which create major safety hazards to the loading process. Therefore, the oil industry has largely focused on control of VOCs. In this research, an experimental study was conducted to characterize VOCs emitted from storage tanks of crude oil in a large-scale oil export terminal. Using the industrial data and simple mathematical tools, effect of different parameters on the composition of emitted gases was investigated. Furthermore, an experimental procedure is proposed to assess the potential of a crude oil absorption process for recovering emitted gases. Experimental results showed that the crude oil absorption process can be adapted to the situation of considered marine terminal for recovering this vent stream of emitted gases. This work can help plant engineers to decide on an appropriate strategy to control VOCs. (C) 2013 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.