Clean Up Oily Waste of Drilling and Production Operation in the VICO Field, East Kalimantan, Using Separation and Bioremediation Technology

Abstract

Abstract Three years ago, VICO Indonesia made the decision to minimize the environmental impact of oily wastes from its drilling, workover completion, and production operations in East Kalimantan. The waste consists of synthetic oil base mud cuttings from drilling and work-over completion operations and oily sludge from production operations. VICO Indonesia is now applying separation and land-farming bioremediation technology to achieve zero oily waste discharge in order to minimize the environmental impact and maximize oil recovery. The project is being implemented in several stages. The first stage of the clean-up is to separate the sludge or other oily solid waste from solid with less oil content, oil, condensate, and other liquids. As the material has a high oil content or high total petroleum hydrocarbon, a secondary objective is to maximize oil recovery. The sludge is first separated by gravity using newly built concrete pits. Using a centrifuge, the oily solid is separated as oil, water, and oily solid. All oily solid waste from the centrifuge is processed using land-farming bioremediation. The oil and condensate is sent to the production process facility to be recycled. The water coming from the pits is processed to meet the government regulations and monitored using a bio-monitoring dynamic pit before being discharged to the environment or injected into disposal wells. The second stage of the clean-up is to process the synthetic oily waste cutting from the drilling operation and all oily solid waste from the centrifuge using land farming bioremediation technology at the Central Bioremediation Area. This technology uses aerobic microbes to degrade the toxic hydrocarbons to harmless end products. The recycled waste is rendered as nontoxic topsoil for in-house regreening. The third stage of the project is to confirm the remediation result. The pile of re-mediated soil has been planted with a variety of vegetable and fruits. The soil, vegetables, and fruits have been analyzed to validate the process and ensure there is no contamination. This process has zero cost as the cost of the service is offset by the value of the recycled oil. In addition approximately $1,200,000 is saved compared to disposing of the oily waste in commercial facilities. The separation and land-farming bioremediation technology is being successfully applied to eliminate oily waste in VICO Indonesia. All treated waste is within the limits as prescribed by government regulations.