Bahadori - Waste management in the chemical and petroleum industries

This edition first published 2014
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bahadori, Alireza.
Waste management in the chemical and petroleum industries / Alireza Bahadori.
1 online resource.
Includes index.
Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
ISBN 978-1-118-73171-0 (MobiPocket) ISBN 978-1-118-73172-7 (Adobe PDF) ISBN 978-1-118-73173-4 (ePub) ISBN
978-1-118-73175-8 (cloth) (print) 1. Petroleum industry and tradeWaste disposal. 2. Chemical industryWaste disposal.
3. Petroleum refineriesWaste disposal. I. Title.
TD899.P4
628.51dc23

2013021840

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 9781118731758 (13 digits)

Dedicated to the loving memory of my Parents, grandparents, and to all
who contributed so much to my work over the years.

Preface

Oil and gas are major sources of energy and revenue for many countries today their production has been described as one of the most important industrial activities in the twenty-first century and obviously waste treatment and disposal assume a greater degree of importance in the petroleum, chemical processing, and unconventional oil and gas industries.

Wastewater quality and the quantity produced determine the means of disposal and the costs of disposal. Suspended solids, total dissolved solids, and oxygen demand of produced waters have the most impact on wastewater treatment.

Wastewater is a complex mixture of organic and inorganic compounds and the largest byproduct by volume generated during chemical processing and both conventional and unconventional oil and gas recovery operations. The potential of oilfield-produced water to be a source of freshwater for water-stressed oil-producing countries and increasing environmental concerns, in addition to stringent legislations on produced water discharge into the environment, have made produced water management a significant part of the oil and gas business.

In marginally economic coal bed projects, the water disposal costs and attendant environmental accounting are critical factors in the investment decision; water disposal costs can economically make or break a marginal project.

Before investing in a coal bed methane (CBM) process, multiple questions need to be answered concerning the water to be produced questions concerning quantity, flow-rates, chemical content, disposal means, monitoring, and environmental regulations. Perhaps no other factor affects the economics and feasibility of CBM projects as much as water removal and disposal.

In heavy oil production, between 2 to 4.5 volume units of water are used to produce each volume unit of synthetic crude oil in an ex situ mining operation. Despite recycling, almost all of it ends up in tailings ponds. However, in Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) operations, 9095% of the water is recycled and about 0.2 volume units of water is used per volume unit of bitumen produced.

A major hindrance to the monitoring of oil sands-produced waters has been the lack of identification of individual compounds present. By better understanding the nature of the highly complex mixture of compounds, including naphthenic acids, it may be possible to monitor rivers for leachate and also to remove toxic components. Such identification of individual acids has for many years proved impossible, but a recent breakthrough in analysis has begun to reveal what is in the oil sands-produced waters.

The extraction and use of shale gas can affect the environment through the leaking of extraction chemicals and waste into water supplies, the leaking of greenhouse gasses during extraction, and the pollution caused by the improper processing of natural gas.

A challenge to preventing pollution is that shale gas extractions vary widely in this regard, even between different wells in the same project; the processes that reduce pollution sufficiently in one extraction may not be enough in another.

Chemicals are added to the water to facilitate the underground fracturing process that releases natural gas. Fracturing fluid is primarily water and approximately 0.5% chemical additives (friction reducer, agents countering rust, agents to kill microorganisms). Since (depending on the size of the area) millions of liters of water are used, this means that hundreds of thousands of liters of chemicals are often injected into the soil.