Oil or natural gas well drilling produces a lot of waste. Managing the waste has become a challenge, and even more, the center must be more sensitive to the environment and disposal methods.
A company has developed a method to dispose of solid waste that results in zero waste and does not require landfill disposal. In fact, it named itself “Return Disposal,” because it returns the waste back to its place of origin.
“The technology we use is called fractured slurry injection,” said Toben Scott, president of Return Disposal.
He said the technology has been around since the 1980s, invented by MI-Swaco in conjunction with Phillips 66 for their North slope operation.
“In a harsh environment like the North Slope (or) in a pristine environment, you can’t dump oil-based cuttings into the tundra or truck it to Anchorage,” Scott said. And, he added, it’s cost-prohibitive to fly the pieces. So, the two companies devised a way to “dump” the waste and inject it into pre-engineered disposal intervals.
Scott, who began his career with Phillips in Houston, read about the technology in the company’s newspaper and its use in Bohai Bay, China, in 2000. Seventeen years later, after striking out on his own, he developed a relationship with a Chinese company. who had worked with Phillips in the Bohai Bay project.
The two companies are forming a joint venture to use Chinese technology to dump “slurrified” waste into their companies’ saltwater disposal wells.
Scott classifies solid oil field waste in two ways: Western Solids, which includes oil-based muds, water-based muds and tank bottoms that arrive in vacuum trucks or pipelines, and dry solids, which arrive in end-dump trailers. While Balik disposal can do both, he said that handling wet solids dominates the business.
Traditionally, that waste has been disposed of in landfills or what are known as landfills, he said. The company mechanically processes the waste into finer particles until it can be injected into traditional disposal wells whose wells have been constructed for disposal. Reservoir engineers then ensure waste is stored with maximum efficiency and economy. Having a reservoir to do so tells the company how the stone responds, allowing the company to change the parameters accordingly, he explained.
“The environmental benefits are huge,” Scott said. “Instead of an unpleasant ‘ski hill’ that is a landfill, we can inject the waste 5,000 to 11,000 feet below the surface, basically where the waste comes from.”
Scott admits that growing concerns about the impact of water injection into disposal wells on seismicity also applies to his business because Return Disposal is also injecting fluids. But none of the company’s three facilities in Big Spring, just west of Mentone and 27 miles south of Midland in Upton County – are in a seismic-sensitive area, he said. The Upton County facility is a saltwater disposal facility that has been repurposed for fracturing slurry injection, according to Scott.
Managing oilfield waste has gotten more complicated and will become more complicated as new regulations are introduced and concerned residents seek more information about what is disposed or opposed to disposal near them, said Scott.
Still, he said, “unless there is a drastic environmental movement, I don’t think the land farm will be destroyed. Slurry will be popular and become a larger disposal component. The relationship with seismicity is a challenge that must be overcome.
Technology has re-engineered how oil fields work, says a former petroleum engineer. It has improved how economically and environmentally friendly oil can be produced, and technology can also continue to improve how oilfield waste is managed, he said.
