Drilling Waste Management
Drilling waste management is a vast and systematic process. After shale shaker extracts drilling cuttings from the mines and after the extraction of fluids from the cuttings, whatever is left is considered as drilling wastes . These wastes are required to be decontaminated by processing the wastes in various equipments.
After all the processing, the most important issue needs to be handled regarding drilling waste management. The issue is determining the waste disposal option. It is the end stage of the total drilling waste management. An environment friendly waste disposal method must be followed in order to calm down all the controversy and criticism regarding environmental sustainability.
Here a brief discussion about the drilling waste disposal options is given below.
How the drilling waste should be disposed? A very common disposal method of drilling waste is land spray while drilling. In this method, the drilling waste is sprayed by using a pump. This method of disposal is very effective for fluid based drilling waste. It is very cost effective.
Another effective way of disposing drilling waste is pumping off the waste. In this process, the non – radioactive clear fluid of waste is pumped in a green planting area. It is very sustainable way of disposal as it ensures the best use of natural elements. Another vastly used approach for waste disposition is the mix – bury approach. In this method, a mixture is created by using drilling waste with mud of disposing area. Above the mixture of those two components, a single layer of soil is used to cover the mixture.
It is also a very environment friendly way of waste disposition as it causes minimum contamination. Finally, another way of disposing the drilling waste is using separate waste disposal sumps. In this method, several waste sumps are built for disposing different types of waste. It is the formal waste disposal system of drilling companies.