The South part of the Priobskoe field, located in Western Siberia on a flood land of the Irtysh River, is an environmentally sensitive area. Zero discharge regulations prohibit cuttings discharge and spills of liquid wastes on the surface. Until now, the exploration and full development of such oil and gas fields was a major challenge for operating companies working in Russia as all drilling wastes including cuttings, used muds ready for disposal, and waste waters which cannot be disposed in this sensitive area. Drilling wastes had to be transported away from the region to areas where waste disposal pits were allowed to be constructed and wastes to be stored. The major hurdle for the drilling campaign is the cost of transportation of the vast amount of drilling waste generated from multiple rigs. Moreover, during spring or fall, such transportation is virtually impossible because of the absence of winter roads and rivers are impassable due to flooding or ice movement. A joint effort between a major oil company in Russian and a waste management service company selected Waste Injection (WI) technology as the most efficient, economical and environmentally friendly way to handle the drilling waste in the field. Waste Injection is a relatively new waste disposal methodology used in Russia, although the first injection job on a worldwide basis was in 1991. The first Russian WI operation was successfully implemented in 2004 on offshore projects near Sakhalin Island. Since that time and until October 2008, WI had only been used on several offshore platforms. The need of a robust technology for waste management on the South Priobskoe field was the departure point for implementing WI in mainland Russia. The following paper describes the steps taken to implement WI on land projects in Russia as the technology that allows for zero discharge, ensuring a safe and permanent drilling waste disposal performed under strict regulations and minimizing associated transportation and cost risks. Waste Injection Assurance Most of the oil companies in Russia wanted to implement WI on the mainland but were concerned about legislation issues as this type of operation had never been done on Russian land jobs. In October 2008, the first steps towards making WI operations a reality in Russia began with the development of a feasibility study or Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) Study for waste injection in the area, as part of the assurance process.
Subsurface drilling waste injection has been proven as an environmentally safe and cost-effective alternative for drilling waste disposal in remote and environmentally sensitive areas. This has resulted in the rapid expansion of waste injection operations into major E&P regions throughout the world, and thus, the dramatic increase in total drilling waste volume injected in recent years.Despite the outstanding milestones that have been achieved and the millions of barrels of drilling waste successfully injected, there are significant subsurface risks involved with any waste injection project, such as breach to surface, intersection with near-by wells or natural faults and well plugging. Limited understanding and characterization of those risks could potentially have a significant environmental impact and jeopardize the predefined project execution plan. Therefore, continuous injection monitoring and pressure interpretation coupled with a proactive subsurface assurance process is the key to mitigate those risks and ensure environmentally safe and seamless waste injection operations. Complexity of fracturing systems created during multiple waste injections render it imperative to monitor and characterize the waste domain in real time through corresponding pressure behavior interpretation. This paper presents the unique and technically challenging injection monitoring and pressure interpretation experience attained in different waste injection projects in the CIS region, where the in-depth interpretation of fracture behavior and waste domain monitoring helped to minimize subsurface risks and to provide an adequate level of subsurface assurance. Continuous monitoring of injection data and parameters by a group of geo-mechanical experts in close collaboration with the operational team helps to identify and minimize the sub-surface risks and generate appropriate recommendations and mitigation procedures to avoid potential injectivity failures. Currently more than one and a half million barrels of drilling waste have been successfully contained through various waste injection projects in the CIS region.
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