Exploration Drilling Platform 3 Operating Environmental Technology Applications

With the fast development of offshore oil and gas exploration and exploitation, the marine environmental pollution is becoming more and more seriously. To control the marine pollution and enhance the marine environmental protection is the essential way for the offshore oil and gas industry to make a sustainable development.How to properly discharge the wastes and pollutants produced at the drilling stage on an offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling unit is the key to protect the marine environment. At present, for the upgrading of the environmental protection facilities on the old drilling platforms, there is no example in China which can be referred to. With Kantan III drilling rig walking into the international offshore oil drilling market, the application of environmental protection technologies has been spearheaded.This paper studies the upgrading plan of the environmental protection technologies for the Kantan III drilling operation. To meet the marine environmental protection requirements at the drilling stage, the selection and implementation of the upgrading plan is expatiated around three aspects, that is, the collection and disposal of the wasted drilling fluid, drill cuttings, and domestic sewage on the platform.Based on the abundant information collected and studied, this paper firstly makes a brief description about the environmental protection regulations and discharge standards regarding the drilling wastes formulated by major countries for major sea areas. These are the upgrading requirements and standards for the environmental protection facilities on the platform. In the following chapters, for the collection and disposal of the wasted drilling fluid and drill cuttings, this paper details the plan implemented on Kantan III. Based on a standard well hole, the quantity of the drilling wastes which are possibly produced, collected and disposed of is calculated. Then based on the quantity of the drilling wastes, three collection and disposal plans are designed. Kantan III selected one of the three. By utilizing the collecting tanks which are added to replace the platform ballast tanks, the problem of insufficient variable load on an old platform and influenced platform stability will be solved skillfully. This is the point which can be used for reference. In the final chapter, this paper describes the domestic sewage treatment process on Kantan III. For the treatment of the domestic sewage on the platform, some customerized functions have been added, that is, the adding of skimmers and the function of burning the wasted oil, which breaks through the manufacturer' s concept about the facilities, spreads out the functions of the whole set of the equipment. This is of some creativity. Besides, this plan also makes a trial research and application on the recycling of the wasted fresh water on the platform, which has laid a foundation for the similar platforms to further expand the application areas and scopes, and also means a lot for platform energy saving and emissions reduction.The plan and concepts stated in this paper help to realize the zero-discharge and marine ecological environment protection by the collection and treatment of the wastes and pollutants produced during the platform operation. What' s more, this paper can also be used for reference and as guidelines by providing a detailed and complete plan for the upgrading of the environmental protection system on a used platform.