2004

ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AND RATIONAL
NATURE MANAGEMENT
IN THE JOINT-STOCK COMPANY “SURGUTNEFTEGAS”

The Open joint-stock company “Surgutneftegas” is one of the biggest Russian oil-producing companies. In 2003 the company produced 54 million tons of oil and 14,6 billion cubic m of gas. At present over 50 subdivisions of the JSC “Surgutneftegas” fulfill the whole complex of works on prospecting, development of oil and gas fields, oil and gas production and sale.
In the production activity of the joint-stock company a great importance is attached to environment protection and rational use of natural resources. The major strategic task of the environmental activity in the JSC “Surgutneftegas” is the planned reduction of the industry influence on the environment. Some aspects of the environmental activity and visits to the production objects are offered to the participants of the conference “Application of ecologically-clean technologies”, held in the framework of the International Ecological Action “To Save & to Preserve”.

1. System of the JSC “Surgutneftegas” response to oil spills.

The oil production and transportation in the JSC “Surgutneftegas” is done by 6 oil- and gas-producing subdivisions on the area of almost 30 000 sq.km. There is a wide system of pipelines with the total length of about 20 ths. km with many subsurface and surface junctions.

To provide the readiness and dispatch of the fulfillment of the works, devoted to localization and liquidation of oil spills, the two-level system of the respond to oil spills is founded in the JSC “Surgutneftegas”.
The first level of the response is the actions of forces and means of the oil- and gas-producing division, if on its territory of production activity the oil spills happened. Central engineer-technological services of oil- and gas-producing subdivisions play a major role in making operative decisions and organizing works to liquidate oil spills.
The second level of the respond is forces and means of all the oil- and gas- producing divisions and structural subdivisions of the JSC “Surgutneftegas” under the control and coordination of the company’s services and departments.

In the JSC “Surgutneftegas” there is a system on the prevention and liquidation of oil spills and oil products spills. This system is ready for the immediate response in the case of emergency situations at the local and regional level. The Commission of the Emergency Situations Ministry of Russia with involvement of specialists from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Healthcare Ministry of Russia, State Technical Control Division held the inspectors’ revision on issues of civil defense, prevention and liquidation of emergency situations in the Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug in April 2001 and highly estimated the system of the JSC “Surgutneftegas”.

2. Liquidation of oil spills

Since 1995 the equipment of the firm “Vikoma” has been applied to collect and to pump out oil. At present the JSC “Surgutneftegas” is possessed of great equipment as follows:

  • 93 units of oil-skimmers of different construction design with various principles of oil collection, including vacuum, “excavation” principles, principle of balling which provide collecting oil of various viscosity under different weather and climatic conditions;
  • over 6000 meters of portable and quick-uncoiling oil booms both lightened and beefed-up, bank-protection and marine booms made of cold resistance materials;
  • portable, self-rising tanks “Vaikotank” for oil temporal keeping;
  • sorbent-boom-forming and sorbent-pushing machines, sorbent materials to form booms of returnable use;
  • 3 boats - oil skimmers to collect oil in the shoals and rivers of the Ob, Pim, Trom-Egan;
  • sprinklers of various capacity for bio-agents and bacterial preparations;
  • autonomously-working pumps of high pressure and freely built-up aluminium pipes for pumping the collected oil from arduous locations.

To transport oil-polluted soil vacuum tip-lorries Cusco with the cross-country chassis “Kenworth”, vacuum barrels “CAS-11”, based on the car “TATRA”, are used. For liquidation and re-cultivation works the cross-country vehicles “FOREMOST HUSKY” are used with the excavator and other overhead equipment as well as snow-going and swamp-going vehicles “FOREMOST CHIEFTAIN-D” with the ecological vehicle for milling “EM-4M”. “DESTROIL”, “DEVOROL”, “NAFTOX” are used from bacterial preparations.

3. Equipment for oil-polluted soil washing

To utilize oil-polluted soils and liquids, each of 6 oil- and gas-producing divisions is possessed of the Center on the sand washing and oil-polluted soils washing which is a complex of various equipment and structures. This complex is aimed at reducing the degree of soils and grounds oil pollution. The system, designed especially for the JSC “Surgutneftegas” by the firm “EPCO”, can be applied for sand, gravel, clay and boring slime washing. The system construction design is characterized as follows with:

  • Application of standard oil field equipment;
  • Protection from big particles and vegetation;
  • Explosion-proof and electric equipment;
  • Modified appliance for reverse-flow washing, aimed at preliminary disposal of big particles;
  • Consecutive location of the equipment to separate different fractions;
  • Circulating water supply and multifold use of reagents;
  • Availability of the facility for chemical flocculation and coagulation;
  • Design possibility of the application jointly with the system of liquid phase processing.

The “line of the liquid phase” is aimed at washing drilling fluid from oil and oil products and also from oil-polluted fluid. It includes the three-phase separator with the preheat of the type “HEATER-TREATER” which allows to separate effectively water from oil. Oil is utilized at oil opening-up facilities, and water can return to the line of the solid phase washing for the re-use as a washing agent or to the system of the maintenance of reservoir pressure.
The productivity of each line is from 5 to 10 cubic m per hour of the “raw materials”, it works day-and-night from May till September. In the structures there are also slime-accumulators where oil-polluted snow and soil are accumulated in wintertime.

4. Complex on thermal cleaning oil-polluted soils and slimes

In the JSC “Surgutneftegas” in 1995 the polygon on the location of boring and oil slimes with the volume of 7000 cubic m was put into operation. The experience of its exploitation showed that under the conditions of the Middle Pre-Ob area, mainly represented by swamps, the construction of such polygons does not solve the problem in the oil-polluted wastes handling. This polygon is the only in the region and has been filled in with wastes of structural subdivisions almost for three years of its exploitation. The necessity in the construction of such new objects arose. Taking into account that such polygons can be erected only in dry places with the low level of ground water that is in the first above-bottomland terraces of the Ob river, mainly occupied with forests of the first group, such solving the problem of oil-polluted wastes is not rational neither from the ecological point of view nor from the economical point of view.

In the JSC “Surgutneftegas” two facilities of oil slimes thermal processing are functioning. This equipment allows to process oily wastes with many asphaltene- gum-paraffin substances which are not subject to utilization. The operating efficiency of the facilities is from 5 to 10 cubic meters of solid slimes per hour. Oil slimes will be burnt according to this technology with the minimal blowouts of polluting substances and the cleaned-up particles (“ash”) will be used to create asphalt-concrete mixture and for other purposes. The formation of the closed technological chain in the JSC “Surgutneftegas” is finished on the oil slimes full disposal.

5. Utilization of drilling wastes and re-cultivation of slime pits.

In 1996 the forest technology of the slime pits re-cultivation was applied and still used. It is a rational technology of slime pits re-cultivation from the ecological and economic points of view. Normative documents which allow the application of this technology on the whole territory of the JSC “Surgutneftegas” are developed and agreed. While the period from 1996 to 2003 the works on the re-cultivation have been done on 1992 slime pits.
The application of the slime pits forest re-cultivation method in the JSC “Surgutneftegas” only in 2004 will help to prevent:

  • Additional withdrawal of the lands of the State Forest Fund to locate sandy pits with the area of 72000 sq.m;
  • Production of sands to fill in slime pits in the volume of 627,5 ths. cubic m;
  • Blowouts of harmful substances into the atmosphere from motor transport while transportation of 2,75 tons of sand;
  • Risk of accidents at the motor transport with financial and ecological damage.

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