Abstract
After more than 50 years of oil production, from 1991 through 2010, the ‘Schoonebeek Oilfield’ has been cleaned up and restored. The ‘scope of work’ consists of the abandonment of all (wellhead) locations, metering stations, installations, cables, pipelines and roads', including all disturbances of the soil quality. Finally, the area has been prepared for cultivation and transferred over to the owners. During the project, approximately 1 million m3 of contaminated soil has been removed and more the 2 million m3 of groundwater has been extracted.
The activities were carried out in such a way that the costs were reduced to a minimum, whereby the project was treated as a continuous improvement process. Besides the application of proven technology, new techniques have been developed. Not all of the newly developed techniques were successful. By way of evaluation at regular intervals, lessons were learned about engineering and data management, planning and necessary permit applications as well as clustered realization of projects. Also, lessons were learned for future operations based on the soil and groundwater contaminations found. For new developments, soil risk analyses were carried out and soil protecting measurements were taken on well locations and treatment plants. By not only taking into account the production of oil and gas but also considering prevention of contamination of the soil and/or the groundwater, the total life cycle costs can be reduced significantly. At the end of production time, the locations can then easily be given back to the owners or nature.
