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Satellite monitoring will ensure no hot, greasy waste is discharged from FPSOs – EPA
Kaieteur News – Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Kemraj Parsram has assured that no discharges which can be described as “hot and greasy” would be dumped into this country’s waters during offshore oil production.
Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Kemraj Parsram
In a statement issued to the press on Tuesday, the EPA head explained that the agency requires any impact to be well within acceptable levels and as low as reasonably practicable. His comment comes on the heels of an article published by Kaieteur News on September 12, 2023 under the headline ‘112,000 tonnes of hot, greasy water to be discharged daily from Exxon’s 6th project – EIA’. In that article, it was explained that the operator of the Stabroek Block- ExxonMobil Guyana Limited (EMGL) would be required to treat produced water and other discharges containing oil and other contaminants to specific standards. It also noted however, that the EPA did not respond to queries regarding mechanisms in place to verify that the discharges would be treated to the required standards.
In his statement yesterday, Parsram noted, “The EPA would never allow any discharges that could be described as hot, greasy water from ever occurring in Guyanese waters…we use continuous independent satellite monitoring to detect even the slightest oil sheen on the waters and thermal imaging to detect every gas flaring. We ensure that our standards are being met every day.”
In addition to the satellite technology being used to monitor these discharges, the Head of the agency said it also “receives live feed” of produced water releases from the FPSOs which are monitored constantly. Moreover, Parsram said independent sampling of water quality is also conducted to ensure that treatment standards are met.
He was keen to note that despite this close oversight, the agency is committed to increasing its monitoring of discharges from the FPSOs and developing an independent review of the monitoring data with the help of international experts.
The regulator outlined that Produced Formation Water (PFW), sometimes called Produced Water (PW) is water trapped in underground formations that is brought to the surface during oil and gas extraction. This water contains components such as salts dissolved from the formation, oil, inorganic and organic compounds, naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and chemical additives from well drilling.
It was explained that the discharges are made into the ocean after the treatment to meet strict discharge quality requirements. Alternately, these discharges can also be reinjected into reservoirs that are no longer in production, the EPA said.
Produced water, according to the agency, typically increases with relatively low production rates early in the life of a well. To this end, consideration is given to treatment and reinjection options as part of continuous improvement of discharge management over the life of a producing field.
The regulator noted that the produced water must be treated to meet the MARPOL Annex I Regulation 14 requirement that any discharge to the sea after treatment must have an oil content that does not exceed 15 mg/L (parts per million), with a maximum measurement on any day of 42 mg/L and a monthly average of less than 29 mg/L. Meanwhile, the temperature of the discharge must not exceed three (3) degrees Celsius of the ambient (surrounding) seawater temperature within 100 meters radius of the discharge point.
EPA said, “Properly managed, the risks of environmental impacts from PFW releases from offshore platforms are very low. Long term studies in the North Sea, Australia, Brazil and globally have found only minor, chronic impacts to very sensitive organisms close to the facility, with even lower impacts in the tropics where warm water temperatures help with rapid biological degradation and volatilization of the trace concentrations of hydrocarbons.” As such, it concluded, “These very minor environmental changes do not impact fisheries and occur within fishing exclusion zones around the rigs.”
- discharges, EPA, hot, Monitoring, oil, satellite
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