Management of the drilling wastes in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabi

The oil and gas drilling operations are more concentrated in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia which hosts the biggest Oil and Gas Reserves in the world. In fact, the Eastern Province has more than (90%) of the oil and gas reserves in contrary. The drilling operations have increased and expanded in this area to meet the global demand and to increase the amount of reserves of the Kingdom. Unfortunately, the drilling operations and activities are associated with several serious impacts on the surrounding environment. The improper handling of the large quantities of drilling wastes produced from the various drilling activities represents one of these serious negative impacts that need to be considered. Drilling wastes consist mainly of drilling fluids and solid cuttings. These drilling wastes need a proper environmental management to avoid the negative effects on the environment. In this study, data on the current oil and gas drilling activities was collected with cooperation with oil and gas companies working in Eastern part of Saudi Arabia, the main data was collected through distributed questionnaire to members of the companies, then extraction of the results and analyses of the data were conducted .The study has found generally that highest percentage of the drilling companies with used Water Based Fluids ( 63.2%), on the other hand 31.6 % of the respondent companies used the Oil Based Fluids. The study also has found that the volume of drilling wastes produced is not consistent, most respondents companies produced a range between (500 - 4000) tons of fluids wastes and (300-3000) tons of the solids cuttings. Finally the study recommends some measures to best practices to mange drilling wastes.