Abstract
Ghanaians have been concerned about the pollution of the surrounding waters of the country since the start of offshore exploration activities (GNA, 2013). Fishermen have complained about the effects on availability of fish, while coastal dwellers have attributed every strange discoloration of the coastline to activities of oil companies. There has also been dissatisfaction expressed in the inefficiencies of the Jubilee environmental impact assessment conducted before the start of operations. This project served to ascertain if indeed oil companies in Ghana were complying with meeting international and EPA Ghana requirements for management of produced water disposal identified any gaps and came out with a unique guideline for Ghana to implement.
According to R.L Petrusac et al(2000), produced water is one of the largest streams of waste from offshore facilities. In order to identify gaps in existing effluent analysis requirements, this paper assessed produced water, from FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, a base case scenario of current analysis requirements in Ghana was assessed, selected countries; US, UK, Norway and Nigeria analysis requirements were also examined to bring out the gaps and a guideline was drafted for use by stakeholders.
Taking a look at analysis required in the various countries compared with Ghana, it was seen that the requirements varied from one country to the other. The only requirement running through all was the oil and grease requirement. This was accepted by all as being an important value to be monitored. A guideline was developed to include all other analysis in the other countries which were not currently being monitored in Ghana. This guideline will be useful to stakeholders interested in finding out produced water effluent composition in order to prevent pollution and also advise on important analysis required to be carried out.
