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PBU G&I waste treatment permit noticed
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation said the permit application for operation of a second grind and inject unit and accompanying storage cells at Drill Site 4 at Prudhoe Bay is complete and it is proposing to issue a comprehensive solid waste treatment permit encompassing both G&I facilities and related storage cells.
Prudhoe Bay operator BP Exploration (Alaska) applied to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas in April to construct a new gravel pad and install an updated Class 1 waste disposal facility between Drill Site 4 and the Fire Training Area at Prudhoe, describing the 2.58-acre gravel pad as accommodating an update Class 1 waste facility which would replace two existing facilities no longer adequate for the unit’s needs.
The division approved BP’s plan for a gravel pad expansion and Class 1 waste disposal facility installation in July and noted in its approval that piping modifications would occur in the existing G&I facility on DS4 and at the proposed waste disposal facility, WDF. Materials staging on pad was scheduled to start in July, gravel pad and culvert installation in August, followed by vertical support member installation, gravel pad infrastructure installation in September and module and solid storage tank installation in November.
ADEC permit In its Nov. 19 notice, ADEC said the comprehensive permit would include the existing DS-4 G&I facility and the GPB G&I facility, which will be operated for treatment and disposal of drilling waste and nonhazardous waste generated from oil and gas production activities at Prudhoe.
In a November solid waste permit application to ADEC, BP said the new facility was to be called the GPB Waste Disposal Facility and requested that the WDF permit application be combined with the existing DS4 G&I facility permit. “The G&I facility has a future planned phase change from ‘active status’ to ‘dormant status’ as the new WDF comes on line,” BP said, with the two facilities to run concurrently until G&I goes into dormant status.
The ADEC application is dated Nov. 8 and BP said it was being sent 45 days prior to the planned beginning of disposal processes at WDF.
BP said ground and slurried waste would be disposed of via underground injection control wells (GNI-02A, GNI-03 and GNI-4) on the Surfcote Pad in accordance with permits from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, with the ultimate disposal zone authorized by the permits below the SV1 Sagavanirktok formation and above the CM2 Colville/Seabee shale formation.
BP said the WDF is a self-contained plant including a ball mill that grinds and slurries oilfield solids for disposal by underground injection; the WDF also includes two material transfer stations on the DS4 pad used for temporary storage of waste prior to processing.
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