Technical Waste Services & Offshore Decommissioning works Including Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material.
Following on from some previous consultancy works, Technical Waste Services (TWS) were contacted by a large Oil and Gas company based out of Southeast Asia. The remit was simple to provide independent consultancy for an Oil well decommissioning project off the coast of West Africa. The pipelines were expected to contain NORM built up over the life of the Well. TWS being independent was a very important aspect for our client as it meant we would advise on what was best for the project rather than advice what we could do in-house at our own facilities.
Norms is Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material. Natural radioactive elements are present in very low concentrations in Earth's crust and are brought to the surface through human activities such as oil and gas exploration
Oil pipe with NORM Scale build up
Over time they concentrate inside the equipment used to extract the oil and gas from below the earth’s surface. The build-up of this scale presents a health hazard. See photo below.
The issues raised by NORM’s in less developed areas of the world are mainly due to the lack of infrastructure, experience in the handling and packaging but also the fact that there are no facilities in place to process, minimise and dispose of the Radioactive wastes in a compliant way.
Technical Waste Services (TWS) were tasked with looking to Europe’s Capabilities and offering a comprehensive solution to our client. Not only this but to visit the country and provide feedback on local capabilities as well as meet with the Government Departments for both Nuclear and Environment. These meetings were to discuss the projected works, explain the process and collaborate to ensure everyone was happy with the scope of works, management plans and to make sure local legislation, health and safety and professional bodies guidelines were all met.
Technical Waste Services consultants lead these meetings, The Ministers and President of the departments were all very approachable, welcomed our visit and wanted to learn more themselves about how we do it in the UK. They wanted to know what is the best practice, to see procedure documents, end destination permits and were very clear in their need to see completed duty of care and waste transfer notes, which where great to see. We also discussed the TFS needs with the relevant departments to ensure understanding and compliance with the Basel Convention.
TWS also looked at the local capabilities including the port to onshore, areas of land to create a transfer station and created a working document on the needs of the project in terms of minimum standards required in the UK by the Environment Agency and SEPA for Hazardous Waste Transfer Stations, Environment Management Systems and Duty of Care. Working to these standards from the start and explaining the processes to everyone involved gave creditability to our client from the local government. The need for a transfer station in the country is due to the timescales needed to retrieve the NORM contaminated pipework’s from the seabed. The project would take months to complete meaning we needed to bulk up the pipework, safely and securely, clean off the outside of the pipes from sea life and package ready for transport onto a processing facility.
TWS identified the potential processes and locations in Europe, engaged with the companies and audited it down to two. We presented our findings not just based on cost but also on which site would give the best outcome in terms of the Waste Hierarchy. A process of treatment and recovery was pitched rather than just incineration. After an initial visit by TWS, we then arranged for our client and a logistics representative to carry out site visits with us. This was to allow them to see first-hand cradle to grave capabilities and to make themselves comfortable with the process we were suggesting.
Clients Auditing the Port capabilities for the import of NORM from site in West Africa
After two separate full days of audits which allowed our clients to see everything from the destination port, the crane operator for unloading the vessel, the treatment facility and ask as many questions as they wished all agreed that our chosen sites and destinations were more than capable of the project.
Now we wait for mobilisation and commencement dates expected early 2019. The main thing we have learned is that this industry involves a lot of audit and future planning.
Once the project is running, we will update this blog with more detail. Please visit our main site www.technicalwasteservices.co.uk to see more about us and the works we do.