Enhanced Slurrification Method

Abstract

A method of slurrifying oil contaminated materials by introducing a microemulsion or microemulsion-forming surfactant(s) to the material and subjecting the mixture to suitable shear or mixing forces to suitably blend such mixtures. The method may be applied directly to wastes such as waste drill mud cuttings and muds, emulsions, sludges, or soil substrates contaminated with water and/or oil drilling fluids in order to both reduce the viscosity and improve the lubricity, wetting, and flow properties of the substrate.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]This invention relates to a method for the enhanced slurrification of oily materials. More particularly, the invention relates to the enhanced slurrification of oily materials to allow facilitated transport and / or treatment or subterranean re-injection of e.g. oil contaminated drilling and production wastes produced from oil and gas industry operations or other oil contaminated soil, sludges or emulsion wastes generated by other industrial sectors.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Within many industries and the oil industry in particular, oily soils, sludges and emulsions may be produced at various times throughout the regular operations or processes employed within the sector. Increasing environmental awareness and more stringent environmental regulation has necessitated the more frequent movement, handling, and treatment of such wastes and more sophisticated and environmentally benign methods of disposal.[0003]Historically, many such wastes were either d...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0022]This invention therefore relates to the design and method for using surfactants and surfactant formulations which have either oil-in-water (O / W) or water in oil (W / O) microemulsion forming properties or which are microemulsions in their own right for use in enhancing the slurrification and pumpability of oily (waste) materials.

Problems solved by technology

The use of such muds can result in the generation of considerable quantities of oil contaminated drilled material removed from the well (referred to within the industry as waste drill mud cuttings or cuttings).

However, there are problems associated with this method especially concerning the significant logistics involved.

In addition, there are considerable health and safety risks involved when moving large quantities of this kind of equipment under sea faring conditions in relatively short time periods.

The same disadvantages are also encountered at the dockyard for the tasks of unloading to treatment and disposal sites.

Also when at sea such operations are limited by the weather conditions and these operations must be put on hold when weather conditions become more severe.

This may result in significant downtime and lost revenues.

The irregular nature of the drilled rock particles and the in-built viscosity of the drilling fluids poses significant handling problems for all of the above processes and it is common for other fluids such as muds, water and oil to be added to increase the ease of handling.

This can considerably increase the amount of materials that need to be treated or disposed of, increases the volumes that may be required to be transported, and can incur additional costs for the dilution fluid, especially if they are oils or muds.

In addition, the use of hydrocarbon oils complicates the operations in terms of fire / explosion protection and the protection of operators from exposure to vapours that may be carcinogenic or otherwise hazardous to health.

Moreover, in general water added to reduce viscosity can exhibit a hydrating effect in the presence of oil-contaminated shales and the like resulting in an extremely high viscosity or indeed a congealed material.

The viscosity of both the oil spill and production emulsions can be several hundreds of thousands of centipoises, making them virtually impossible to pump other than by very specialist equipment.

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