R3 Treatment: Reducing, Reusing and Recycling E&P Waste
USLL has introduced and implemented several innovative R3SM technologies and programs to reduce, reuse and recycle E&P waste. R3 technologies and programs are starting to deliver real environmental benefits to our industry and to the communities we serve.
Minimizing operator liability:
road base and levee fill
With USLL’s land treatment process, soluble salt content is decreased, oil concentration is reduced by recovery or degradation, and clean cuttings or reuse materials are stored in secure onsite stockpiles. These stockpiles can be safely eliminated through two new reuse programs.
Road base The R3 road base program converts stockpile material to environmentally safe road base. Experiments conducted at USLL’s South Texas facilities with an independent lab have demonstrated that treated reuse material can be converted to new high-performance road base material. Lab tests of the new R3 road base have proved that the material is cleaner and more affordable than asphalt and has higher compressive strength.
How does this new road base development promise to minimize operator liability? Now approved by regulatory agencies for building public and private roads, the R3 road base leaves the USLL facility for road-building projects as a "commercial product" that is no longer classified as waste. Given the enormous volume of road base consumed every year in the areas surrounding USLL facilities, all the existing and newly created stockpile from drilling operations can easily be reused beneficially in road repair and construction to help eliminate operator liability.
Levee fill The clean reuse material produced by USLL’s land treatment process meets government standards for reuse and is ideal for levee fill. USLL is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources to ensure that liability to the generator ends when the stockpile material leaves the facility as reuse material for a levee reconstruction project. Levee projects in Louisiana need many times the volume of material than is currently stockpiled at USLL facilities. The E&P waste generated can be treated, and the stockpile material can be reused to minimize operator liability.
With these innovative programs, we are working hard to achieve zero operator liability by converting E&P waste to beneficial reuse products.
R3 treatment: reducing water use, recycling more oil
For 25 years land treatment cells have been used safely but not efficiently. USLL is piloting a new process to greatly improve efficiency that will ensure land treatment remains the most affordable and least risky alternative for managing E&P waste. Tests of the new R3 treatment process indicate that USLL’s treatment facilities can safely handle the continued increase in drilling activity expected in the years ahead. As the new technologies and processes are implemented, we expect to be able to handle three times the volume of E&P waste without increasing the footprint of our present facilities. USLL’s patent-pending R3 technologies and techniques are the building blocks of this significant increase in throughput.
Conventional land treatment For many years land treatment facilities have used 4- to 6-acre cells to process E&P waste. As waste is received at a facility, all the drilling and production streams are mixed into one cell for treatment. On average it takes about 15 washes over 21 months to decrease soluble salt content and to recover or degrade the oil. Treatment water is injected into permitted injection wells, oil is recycled, and clean reuse material is stockpiled for future use. While the entire process has been confirmed as the most affordable and lowest risk E&P waste treatment option, it does require land and water resources. About two years ago USLL set out to make it more efficient.
R3 treatment The first step in driving higher efficiencies in land and water use was USLL’s patent-pending waste segregation technique. In a pilot project conducted at the Mermantau facility in Louisiana, a six-acre cell was divided into six smaller cells. The smaller cells received three types of segregated waste streams: low chlorides and low oil, high chlorides and low oil, and high oil concentration wastes. A freshwater pond is included as one of the cells. By segregating the waste into these different mini-cells, the number and timing of water washings is improved, treatment time is reduced significantly and oil recovery is more efficient.
The second innovation pioneered by USLL to improve efficiency is its patent-pending method of active water evaporation. This new active evaporation technique was developed in cooperation with the Louisiana DEQ and DNR.
USLL is continuing to experiment with its new R3 treatment process to further refine its waste segregation and active evaporation processes. The patent-pending R3 treatment process is the foundation of USLL’s initiatives to reduce water, recycle oil and reuse waste.
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