Environmental Management of Drilling Mud

Abstract

With day to day increase in demand for mineral resources, and to meet the industrial and economical requirements, the mineral exploration and production companies are participating actively for innovation of technologies and introducing more environmental friendly practices, along with maximization of their profits. This thesis work summarizes the environmental management of drilling fluids that are the most important part of any hydrocarbon exploration and production activity. The type and composition of the drilling fluids, and drilling techniques, helps the reader to identify the basic concepts of drilling muds (fluids), and their environmental impacts. Along with this, the environmental regulations and directives identified in this thesis report will provide an optimal approach to the environmental friendly exploration activity. The introduction to modern techniques for exploration, innovation of new high performance environmental friendly drilling fluids, will increase the vision of the reader towards the best available techniques. The liquid and cuttings reinjection in the subsurface (into deep geological formations), in the form of slurry, is the new technique and is normally used, to meet the environmental regulations at many offshore and onsite exploration sites, to preserve the other usable resources, like water and avoid the spreading of contamination in the subsurface. For this, the geotechnical requirements, and the injection techniques are discussed in this thesis, so that the goal for sustainable environment may be approached by environmental friendly drilling waste disposal practices. In the end, recommendations are based on the previous history and current scenarios of the oil and gas exploration activities, and also the future aspects of eco friendly exploration and production techniques, for appropriate management of the drilling wastes (solids / fluids).