This paper describes a program to pilot the use of nudge techniques within an oilfield services company to encourage and reinforce positive health, safety and environmental (HSE) behaviors. The objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of the nudges on the workforce in developing desired behaviors and the associated HSE benefits. Academics have explored the concept of nudge theory to influence decision making for over 20 years. The HSE function sought to identify how these nudge techniques and behavioral science could be practically applied to improve safety behaviors and performance in office, operational and manufacturing locations. The HSE function was educated on nudge theory and encouraged to build nudge techniques into training, safety meetings, and other communications. The introduction of nudge techniques was intended to supplement the company's mature HSE Management system and culture with visible, engaging, subtle, and occasionally less subtle behavioral prompts. A nudge toolkit was developed, with individual nudges to address behaviors related to health, safety and the environment such as healthy food choices, anti-smoking, using the stairs, holding handrails, safe walkways and energy efficiency. Each nudge was accompanied by instructions for implementation and a methodology for measuring the behavioral impact. The nudge toolkit was launched in stages, allowing different geographical organizations to select and implement elements within the nudge toolkit as appropriate to their local culture, languages, and activities. This pilot program provided an introduction of nudges to the workforce. The ability to provide empirical data to support the success of the program is limited at this time. Feedback from the workforce indicates the initiative has been well received and that the nudging tools have helped to improve HSE engagement by initiating interest and discussion. A future phase of the program aims to consolidate the pilot study learnings and develop more robust data collection methods for monitoring effectiveness. Feedback from both the workforce and the HSE function employees has been positive. It can be concluded that applying nudging techniques to achieve desired HSE behaviors is a useful addition to the company's toolkit for reinforcing a strong HSE culture and further developing workforce HSE engagement.

Repsol Exploración Perú (Repsol E&P), in accordance with its environmental strategic lines for E&P, has been developing a plan to become certified as a responsible water user in its operations in Block 57. The certification is a recognition granted by the State (National Water Authority - ANA) through a seal or mark called "Blue Certificate". To obtain the certificate it is necessary to comply with 3 steps: Assessment of the Water Footprint Reduction of Water Footprint. Development of a shared value project. By obtaining the Blue Certificate contributes to the sustainability of the business, relationships with key stakeholders such as the State and the communities in the area of influence are maintained and improved. It also manages to optimize the processes that demand water resources in the operations; at the same time, the company is positioned within the sustainable business on water issues in the country.

Oil and gas operations handle and manage large volumes of produced water. In recent years, the increased demand for and natural variability of water resources have driven interest by policy makers, regulators and society in the potential opportunities for its reuse. Such reuse may include the beneficial utilization of produced water with or without treatment to meet the requirements for use within oil and gas operations, or by external users. In recognition of the need to gain a full understanding of produced water management and the potential for reuse, IPIECA conducted an internal survey of 14 IPIECA member companies, interviews with selected external stakeholders covering a range of sectors and geographic regions and a literature review of readily available information regarding this subject. The external stakeholders were identified from the membership survey as well as from IPIECA and consultant's experience with the aim to learn from, and build on, existing work on produced water reuse. Numerous factors can influence the practicability of implementing the reuse of produced water either within the oil and gas industry or by external users. Based on the local circumstances of an operation, the same factors can provide either opportunities and/or constraints, with associated risks. Four main aspects have been identified for considering the reuse of produced water: Economic, Regulatory – Permits, Social and Corporate Policy and Infrastructure.

Drilling operations produces drill cuttings, which need to be managed to minimize their potential environmental impacts. Nowadays, legislation worldwide moves towards limiting discharge at sea to decrease impacts on ocean. But cuttings must still be managed, and alternatives are not necessarily more environment friendly. In this article, three approaches of cutting management environmental impacts were compared. Modeling studies were compared to field data, to assess the relevance of these modeling studies in the evaluation of drilling discharge acceptability. The results of monitoring campaigns conducted on three offshore field in Myanmar, Congo and Angola were collected and analyzed. Lastly, a comparative attributional life cycle analysis (or LCA) of drill cuttings management options was conducted, comparing discharge at sea, reinjection into a disposal well, onshore landfill containment and onshore thermo-desorption. Environmental risk calculation through discharge modeling is robust and constitutes a good tool to evaluate the drilling discharge strategy, but it focuses on the sole discharge at sea option. Results from monitoring campaigns shows that fifteen to twenty years after drilling operations, decreasing trends are observed for drill cutting tracers. For other metals, concentration levels are similar to those of the baseline. Slight impacts on benthic macrofauna community keep on being observed, and processes of initial diversity recovery are in progress locally. At the scale of the entire fields, biodiversity has recovered almost similar levels as initially. With current practices, impacts can be estimated to last around ten years. The LCA was hampered by a lack of standardized indicators for marine compartment impacts and poor characterization of some drilling muds additives in LCA reference databases. Considering these limitations, the results and their interpretations state a higher impact of onshore management with thermo-desorption on most indicators. Discharge at sea has the biggest initial impact on marine ecotoxicity. Onshore landfill has the biggest impact on freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, human carcinogenic toxicity and land use. This study shows that given current practices, impacts of drill cuttings discharge at sea are well predicted and last around 10 years. Alternative management options have impacts as well, mainly on human health, land use and non-marine environmental compartments. Decision-makers must balance the impacts on each compartment to choose the better management option given the context they face. This study highlights the interest of using life cycle analyses to compare management options rather than focusing on the impacts of only one option. To be able to do so, there is a need of developing LCA methodology on marine compartments.

Water is crucial for oil and gas production and typically used for crude washing, drilling mud preparation and accommodation facilities. Water resources in UAE are scarce due to low average rainfall and high evaporation rates. Ground Water is over exploited and consequently the productivity of the aquifer was adversely affected [1] . The water shortage issues have a potential to threaten the sustainable development and hinder national plans for human, industrial and agricultural development [4] . ADNOC Onshore investigated number of technologies and opportunities to recycle wastewater. Upon conducting compatibility and modelling studies, it was established that ADNOC gas processing plant treated wastewater can be safely utilized for crude washing purposes and drilling mud preparation. The paper presents the methods adopted by ADNOC Onshore to evaluate the scaling effects, laboratory tests conducted to assess the suitability for crude washing, mud preparation and potential benefits by utilizinggas plant effluents.

The use of solar powered plant is increasing in the world, and many companies now target to build the solar plants, by taking the help from the top retailers in the world. With the growing demands of the consumers regarding the issue of energy security, the renewable energy resources industry has been advanced with the transformations it has given to the society with the launch of the new technology, named as the solar panels. This evolution has made the industry to utilize the renewable energy resources, specifically the solar energy, in a very effective manner that has given the consumer the authority to generate the electricity with reduced power and cost. In this scenario, the solar photovoltaic power plant is used which is connected to the grid system that is the best source used at the large scale. Experiments have been conducted to evaluate the performance of the solar photovoltaic power systems which gives the overview of the benefits of installing the solar panels in the regions where the climatic conditions are favorable. Seasonal evaluations have been done in the experiment which is useful to deduce the overall performance in terms of the electricity generation and the cost. In this paper, the suggestions to the renewable energy resource company have been given in order to make cost-effective initiatives in the region to satisfy its consumers by providing valuable source of products. This paper focuses on the parameters on the basis of which the performance is evaluated which includes the types of power losses, consisting of the temperature, internal network, power electronics, connection of grid etc.

This paper describes how a carbon management strategy for Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) was developed, building on the GCC award winning Air Compliance Management Program. A range of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions were assessed technically and economically, including measures that could be implemented by KOC or more widely across other sectors in Kuwait. The potential contribution that carbon capture and storage could make, including with enhanced oil recovery, was also assessed. The results are presented in terms of an abatement cost curve for reducing GHG emissions in Kuwait which is comparable to abatement cost curves collated for other countries. Kuwait has the potential to reduce GHG emissions to 29% below 2030 levels at zero net cost, i.e. the cost of investment to deploy emission reduction measures would be offset by direct cost savings in energy and water. Applying the same ‘zero net cost’ to KOC suggests its own GHG emissions could be reduced to 15 – 20% below 2015 levels by 2030. This could include implementing measures within the local community; initiating actions that could be adopted more widely across Kuwait. The ‘zero net cost’ proposition strongly supports implementation of measure to reduce GHG emissions in the short term and would provide a strong basis for investment in other measures, such as carbon capture and storage, in the longer term.

As a drilling contractor when NDC opted to put in place an Energy Management system it became imperative to establish a baseline of energy consumption so that improvement of energy practices could be measured against this baseline. The task was entrusted to DNVGL Noble Denton. But this posed a unique challenge because very little work had been previously done in the field of energy management by drilling contractors across the world. Due to this ready reference material was not on hand that could be adapted to achieve the baseline study. This paper explains the process adopted by both companies and the outcome of the effort. The task was approached by first preparing an inventory of the energy consumers across the company. Because the company owned assets stretching across Onshore and Offshore, real estate and transport vehicles, the assets were first grouped into various types. These were: Onshore Rigs Offshore Rigs Centralized crew camps Head Office Buildings Warehouse Workshops, and Transportation assets Then a sample of each type of asset was visited and the main energy consumers identified. The energy consumption patterns of these assets was then examined to arrive at a specific consumption value that could serve as a baseline for continuous improvement. The challenges of identifying a typical energy demand for drilling rigs arose from the fact that the energy demand was greatly influenced by the vagaries of the drilling program, type of well, operational practices etc. Overcoming these challenges required that assumptions be made to rationalize the data so that it could be applied across the company assets. The baseline energy audit was successfully concluded and areas for improvement were meaningfully identified. This was the first time that a baseline energy audit for a drilling contractor had been prepared and it has paved the way for other drilling contractors to benefit from the effort. Not surprisingly the audit revealed that the major consumers were the rig engines and thus the maximum benefit could be realized from focusing the company energies on managing these engines. Naturally other easier to implement options exist and have been identified for improving the energy consumption This is the first effort at establishing an energy consumption pattern for a drilling company in the region and is likely to become a trend very soon because the adoption of the recommendations can be easily and quickly translated into savings for the company running into millions of dollars.

An oilfield services company has completed a pilot program on a global scale that recognizes the value of energy reduction in terms of sustainability and environmental performance. This paper describes the program that ran for a year with tangible targets for energy reduction, with a focused and structured approach. The program resulted in demonstrable reductions in energy consumption for a proportion of the facilities involved and resulted in valuable insights for future programs. The program, named Mission Emission was piloted on a global scale amongst specific locations belonging to the company’s engineering and manufacturing group. The three key deliverables for the 34 locations in 13 different countries were detailed carbon emissions data collection, an energy survey (including key plant and equipment at each facility) and implementation of identified improvements. The results of the program were evaluated by further data collection at the end of the year. The program resulted in an overall reduction in carbon footprint of 17% and significant financial savings. The program highlighted the critical importance of management support, the need for fundamental knowledge of facilities maintenance and energy management, and the challenge in selecting an appropriate metric to suit multi-country locations with wide variations in population, facilities infrastructure and business activities. 14 locations managed to achieve an energy reduction based on 2016 vs 2015 CO2 e kg per man hour, and 9 of these made the target of 5% reduction. The program saw that even the simplest of changes made an impact, including focused management of high energy consuming manufacturing equipment and machinery, switch off campaigns, strict control on lighting, heating ventilation and air conditioning. The successes of the program have been communicated internally and externally as part of the company’s sustainability reporting. The initiative has provided valuable insights on how future programs may be structured, helped to positively engage employees, and has offered a best practice example for other groups within the company. With concerted focus and management support, reductions in energy consumption and associated cost savings can be made without significant financial investment.

Cairn, Oil & Gas vertical of Vedanta Limited operates ~27 per cent of India’s domestic crude oil production processing upto 1MM bbls of produced fluid. Management and disposal of produced water after stimulation and work over/completion is one of the most challenging problems to sustain productivity without upsetting the surface facility. In order to prevent facility upset, the initial flow back of spent acid is taken into lined pit to allow for longer residence time and effective separation before treatment. Facility has earlier encountered emulsion formation issues for pH less than 6 and iron content more than 50 ppm. Therefore it was imperative that flowback fluid has to be treated to achieve acceptable water quality prior to disposal and maximize treatment volume at low treatment cost. During the first phase of the waste water treatment, Electrocoagulation (EC) method was implemented for decreasing waste water footprint. This method although successful in treating waste water in terms of quality, could not effectively manage high volume of generated waste water. Operation of EC unit also consumed high quantities of energy sources (like Diesel/Electricity) causing higher OPEX and larger carbon footprint of the project. The objective of this paper is to discuss the approach of using innovative method of Chemical Coagulation in place of Electrocoagulation for treating waste water to increase treatment volume in a sustainable manner, along with reduction in OPEX while using minimal additional CAPEX. A series of laboratory experiments were conducted among various chemical coagulants, and PAC (Poly Aluminum chloride) was selected on the basis of effectiveness and operational feasibility. PAC works by coagulation of effluent particles present in waste water. Efficiency of the process was further increased by addition of flocculants (like Anionic Polymer) with coagulants, this led to reduction in required retention time for effluent settling and effective separation of solid waste. Post success of laboratory tests, minor modifications in plant design were implemented, and multiple field tests were conducted by varying dosing concentrations of PAC and Polymer. Also retention time was varied by changing chemical dosing locations within the plant. After successful completion of field trials for Chemical Coagulation method, the project was implemented on full scale. With minimal additional CAPEX, nearly threefold increase in treatment volume with 50% reduction in OPEX has been achieved. Chemical method has also contributed in reducing environmental impact by not generating additional solid byproducts and by decreasing carbon footprint of project. This change in operating method of water treatment plant from EC to Chemical Coagulation has helped to maximize the output of plant while decreasing OPEX and environmental impact. Success of the pilot project opened avenues of using more innovative technologies for efficient disposal of solid waste from the plant and paving the way towards a "Zero Discharge plant".

Saudi Aramco's Southern Area Oil Operations (SAOO) organization is one of the company's critical areas of operations. It contains some of the largest oil production and processing facilities in the world. SAOO has embarked some time ago on its journey of sustainability by setting an ambitious plan to reduce consumption of resources and minimize impact on the environment, all while sustaining capability and readiness to meet current and future demands. This paper sheds light on SAOO's continuing journey of sustainability and discusses implemented and planned activities that make sure the journey continues.

An oilfield services company has developed and implemented a risk-based environmental management system. This has been in response to increasingly diverse exposures, including operation of production fields on behalf of oilfield operators in addition to services and products associated with exploration, well construction and production services. Previous systems took a one-size-fits-all approach, applying a set of mandatory environmental controls throughout the organization. In 2013, as part of a wider review of HSE management system practices, a decision was made to develop a risk-based approach to environmental management. The standard employs a set of fundamental controls which are applied at all facilities, in all business segments, and in all countries where the company operates. These include controls for topics such as contractor management, life cycle management, system monitoring and reporting (including internal and external compliance), due diligence, and training. An environmental risk matrix is used to assess risk for each business segment and each geographical region. Stakeholders include operators, regulators and the local communities. In addition, the risk-based controls cover the requirements of external international codes and standards (e.g. IFC, ISO) where they have been adopted or their use is required. The matrix requires the assessment of each business segment against criteria such as stakeholder requirements, ecosystem impacts, resource consumption, waste management, and air emissions. The results of the assessment are used to identify controls that may be, or must be used where certain risks are identified, which are documented in a business-specific environmental management standard. Individual units in both the manufacturing and operations organizations develop plans to describe the scope of activity for the unit, and document the environmental management procedures and controls required to meet the needs of their business unit and those of their stakeholders. The plan also forms the basis of the internal compliance auditing process for the business unit. The paper describes the development of the system and tools which are used to ensure consistent implementation and conformance across a company that operates in diverse geographical regions. Two years of experience with the implementation process are reviewed, and conclusions on future development are offered.

In the UK, there is significant focus on external certification organizations to verify management system standards of companies operating in the country. For example, in the oil and gas industry, there are external certification requirements for the subject matter areas of quality; health, safety, and the environment (HSE); and sustainable development. The challenge lies not in meeting the requirements of external certification standards but rather in approaching the process as a whole instead of by separate subject matter areas. To address this challenge, an oilfield services company with operations in the UK developed an integrated management system for all subject matter areas. The company integrated the subject matter areas into a single approach and derived benefits from this streamlined initiative. The company, which has had long-standing, robust management systems for quality, HSE, and sustainable development, integrated these subjects into one management system instead of considering each subject within its own individual system. The initiative involved designing the process and procedures, implementing the system into operational planning, and developing certain key features such as customized dashboards for line managers to track outcomes. After a year of implementation, the integrated management system has provided significant benefits in strategic risk-based planning as well as continuous improvement. Metrics are monitored using a dashboard approach to provide management with an immediate overview of performance, which not only raises awareness but also increases focus on key indicators in decision making and planning. The integration process has also resulted in a significant streamlining of the management system structure and documentation. This integrated approach has led to ongoing performance improvements throughout the procurement and operational lifecycle management.

Many societies and cultures still widely accept substance use, such as cigarette and alcohol consumption, despite the evergrowing evidence of its negative impact on health and its contribution to incidents (for example, the risks of drinking alcohol and driving). The users of new psychotropic drugs that have been developed over the last century have become a huge concern to social and economic planners, governments, and societies. What is the impact of the use of these illegal drugs and alcohol on incident rates in the oil and gas industry? Is alcohol or drug consumption linked to these incidents? Is the industry population reflecting the alcohol and drug consumption of the general population? Or is the oil and gas industry more exposed to this particular consumption risk? Safety-critical industries, such as the oil and gas industry, have developed robust substance testing programs for employees. Insight into such programs comes from indirect analysis through liver enzyme and function tests and direct analysis based on specific substance testing of more than 3,000 industry personnel in Brazil over a three-year period. The paper also looks at best practices such as appropriate substance abuse testing policies, respecting local regulations, and providing employee assistance programs within a proactive approach.

Cardiovascular disease is a serious public health problem worldwide, occupying the first place among the causes of morbidity and mortality and also with a high potential for disability. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cardiovascular disease deaths represent 30% of all deaths worldwide. The oil and gas industry is not an exception to this problem, with statistics for an oilfield services company over the last 10 years showing that more than 150 employees died of cardiovascular disease; 95% from heart attack and 5% from stroke. In Colombia it was found in 2012 that a high percentage of the working population of the oilfield services company had one or more risk factors for coronary heart disease: 48.5% for overweight and obesity, 32% for lipid disorders, and 81% for physical inactivity (sedentarism). In consideration that many of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease are modifiable, such as improving one’s lifestyle concerning diet and exercise, a program named Ergoday was structured and implemented to focus on providing an individual diagnosis, intervention, and monitoring of the modifiable risk factors. With an emphasis on weight control, muscle strength, and flexibility in addition to the control of cardiovascular risk factors, the aim of the Ergoday program is to control both cardiovascular risk and musculoskeletal disorders, which were also prevalent in the Colombia workforce. Participants in the program become aware of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease and musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) and the need for physical fitness to improve their quality of life. To achieve long-term success, the intervention includes specific recommendations to reduce or eliminate the risk factors and regular monitoring to assess compliance and impact of the recommendations given.

eni's approach to effectively manage freshwater in the oil and gas industry and to develop sustainable strategies on water issues is presented. The approach combines the use of different tools in order to identify, evaluate and manage water related risks in the operational sites taking into consideration social, ethical, environmental and industrial issues. The first level of assessment is performed using the IPIECA Global Water Tool for Oil&Gas to map supply of freshwater, according to international databases, and to identify areas of water stress, or at risk for health conditions or lacking the infrastructure for water treatment and distribution. The percentage of sites in water stressed areas is 13% according to the screening carried out in 2011. 22% of the sites is at water stress for improved sanitation; sites without improved water are 14%. At the high risk sites, eni has started local assessments using a questionnaire developed by GEMI, to assess the facility's specific water uses/needs in comparison to the availability of water in the region in a more local context; to evaluate the impacts of the operations on the available water resources and to identify the factors that may pose a risk on the local operations. Alternative local water risk assessment methodology including biodiversity and ecosystem impact and water quality discharges are also used for comparison. Projects for the optimization of water resources and quantitative targets are set on the basis of the assessment in order to drive forward policy and strategy implementation, both at the corporate and site level. Eni applied this new approach in Algeria and other water stressed countries. Algerian case study is presented.

Due to a strong economic and demographic growth around the world, global energy needs are going to increase by about 35% from now until 2030 and energy must be saved. In addition to this, GHG emissions must be reduced in order to limit the consequences of global warming. In this context, TOTAL is working on minimizing flaring and on improving the energy efficiency of its existing and future facilities. The in-house tool presented in this paper, EAT (Energy Architecture Tool), is primarily designed for future E&P facilities: it aids in the selection of an energy-efficient and low GHG-intensive architecture, during conceptual and pre-project studies. The tool allows doing the case-by-case approach instead of a "dogma" saying that a specific architecture is equally efficient in every case. It has been validated on four new projects. Contrarily to studies based on design cases, i.e. extreme cases, this tool simulates the behavior of the energy generation unit (mostly gas turbines) and the energy users (compressors, pumps, furnaces), for the various flows, pressure and heat requirements over the field life. These requirements are less constraining than the design case, but they last much longer, and thus they are to be considered for the energy efficiency purpose. EAT is a two-steps tool. The first step is to set a reference of energy consumption / GHG emissions. The reference is not a target but it is an ideally optimized case taking into account the process constraints (e.g. the amount of gas to be compressed, its molecular weight, the required suction/discharge pressures per year, site conditions…). The second step is the screening of several architectures to get as close as possible to this reference over the field life. The various alternatives simulated are: number of compression / pumping trains installed, load shedding strategy, use of constant or variable speed drive, all-electric configuration (turbogenerators and electrical drivers only) versus distributed power generation (e.g. turbocompressors), turbine model or other drives, electricity import or export etc. Once the optimal architectures are identified, the Process, Operations, Technological and Architecture teams check the operability, availability, technical feasibility and economic profitability aspects. The tool can also be used for existing fields, for building GHG mitigation plans, for setting challenging yet achievable objectives to Operations teams and for developing more accurate forecasts.

In an effort to kick start the challenging journey towards low carbon operation, the National Petroleum Company of Malaysia PETRONAS started to quantify the carbon footprint of crude oil and natural gas produced in the country. Petroleum and related hydrocarbon products are not only used as fuel for transportation and combustion, they also function in many industrial products such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), urea, ethane, ethylene and methanol. In Malaysia, there are more than 10 companies that are involved in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. For this study, data from all producing petroleum companies were obtained to compute the composite crude oil and natural gas’ carbon footprint of Malaysia. This required a good understanding of each operator’s/company's operations in order to make appropriate assumptions and right decision with regards to data apportionment. This paper documents the process in which the carbon foot-printing was conducted. This process was a result of collaboration between the Standard Department of Malaysia and PETRONAS. The paper also highlights the challenges encountered in obtaining and determining essential data and information for the establishment of a representative composite carbon footprint. As a conclusion, this paper will share preliminary results from the exercise by making comparison with several carbon footprint data of crude oil from publicly available resources. The report also attempts to propose ways to improve data quality for future carbon footprint studies and discuss identified hotspots which can become a driving force for the exploration and production industry in Malaysia to work together towards achieving low carbon operations.

The Frigg Field Cessation Project 1 , operated by TOTAL E&P NORGE AS, is the single largest offshore field decommissioning project during the recent years. This project comprised the execution of the removal of three steel substructures, five topside facilities and several sea-lines from the Frigg Field has formed a complex scope of work involving disposal / recycling of 73,000 tonnes of materials, lasting over five years and involving some 4,500 maritime vessel days. An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was performed for the Frigg field installations as part of the decommissioning planning in accordance with the programme approved by Norwegian authorities. This was based upon current knowledge and assumptions. During execution of the project relevant environmental aspects have been quantified and/or recorded. Based on the recorded data and information a comparison is made between the Impact Assessment and the actual experienced environmental performance. Further, an evaluation of the overall impacts or "footprint" of the disposal work is made. Experiences gained from this can be valuable input to future decommissioning planning processes as well as clarify the actual environmental impacts related to a major offshore field being shut in and associated installations disposed of (decommissioned). In the 2010 SPE HSE conference in Rio a paper was presented on Key Performance Indicators for Energy consumption and CO 2 emissions (SPE 126825) developed based on the Frigg Cessation Project. However, more experiences and on a wider spectrum can be shared. The current paper addresses the following issues: – Energy (consumption and balance) – Atmospheric emissions – Discharges to sea, water or ground – Waste management /material utilisation – Physical environmental impacts – Aesthetic impacts – Littering

One of the largest industrial constructed wetland systems in the world was commissioned at the start of 2011 to sustainably manage more than 45,000 m 3 /day of produced water from the Nimr oilfields in Oman. This natural treatment system consists of a passive oil-water separator, 234 hectares of surface flow wetlands and 300 hectares of evaporation ponds and has been instrumental in reducing the amount of hydrocarbon polluted produced water being disposed to the deep well aquifers. The Nimr Water Treatment Plant (Nimr WTP), being a gravity flow system uses minimal fossil fuel for its operation and therefore results in an enormous saving in energy consumption compared to the conventional, energy-intensive disposal method of pumping the water more than 1.5 km below ground into deep aquifers under high pressure. Maximizing the use of locally available and naturally occurring materials for construction, treating and reusing oil contaminated soil from the oilfields and minimizing electricity consumption has decreased the carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts of the oilfield, thus helping to protect people and the environment. The average operational power consumption for running the NWTP measured for 2011 was only 0.06 kWh per m 3 of produced water treated, compared to 3.6 – 5.5 kWh/m 3 for the deep well disposal that has traditionally been used. This equates to an energy saving of 98.3 – 98.9 % for managing the produced water and represents a huge saving in energy costs, fossil fuel consumption and subsequent green-house gas emissions making the project not only environmentally friendly but also economically successful for the oil producer. The reduction in CO 2 emissions in 2011 was between 40,700 and 62,600 tons. The wetlands and ponds also provide a valuable habitat for migratory birds, with close to 100 different bird species having been identified at the site to date. During 2012, an extension to the wetland system (additional 120 hectares) is being constructed to increase the capacity of the plant to 95,000 m 3 /day. As part of this extension, approximately 167,000 m 3 of oil contaminated soil has been biologically treated and reused as soil substrate in the wetland, providing additional environmental benefits. This paper discusses the details of the plant performance, data analysis and the challenges experienced in the first year operation of the Nimr WTP.