The SAS MIST in Suriname

Guyana and Suriname, together with French Guyana, form a small section on the northern part of South America. Since 2008 ExxonMobil and some other oil companies have looked for and found substantial amounts of oil. The arrival of the oil industry in Guyana and Suriname has led to the requirement of new environmental regulations and a whole new environmental infrastructure.

The governments have taken a strong line in ensuring high environmental standards and SAS Environmental Services is working with a number of partners in the region. One of our MIST systems is already on its way to the region in order to support the waste treatment and reduction.

The latest member of the SAS MIST family will taking on both drilling slops and production waste using our SlopTreat and SludgeTreat chemistry. It was essential to provide a low energy solution capable of treating large volumes of waste with a very low energy requirement. This keeps power consumption down and minimises the need to store hazardous waste for long periods of time.

The oil industry has the potential to help these economies to grow and at the same time responsibly manage any waste by minimising the waste creation and through fast and immediate treatment of oil waste.

To find out more about the MIST System and Process download our Product Data Sheet.

Model 2 : Disposal of Stabilized Oil Sludge

The Scenario

Let us imagine that we have 50 000 tonnes of liquid oil sludge in a storage somewhere and we must move this sludge about 600 km to the nearest disposal site that is willing to accept it. However, the disposal site will only accept it if it is a solid waste not as a liquid waste. There are several ways to proceed from here, but what is becoming increasingly relevant in today's world now is how much carbon footprint our treatment process incurs.

The Treatment Method

A method that is used to turn liquid sludge into a solid waste so that it is safer for disposal and accepted in more disposal sites is by stabilizing or fixing the waste. This is usually done by adding a stabilizing agent to the waste. The stabilizing agent obviously must be taken to the waste; it must be mixed at the site.  The stabilizing agent is usually a clay or perhaps sawdust, depending on the site location. This process increases the waste volume, but it does turn into a solid. Once solid, with no free liquid visible, the waste will have increased the total volume by a factor of three or four. This quantity then must be transported by truck to the disposal site, 600 km away, where it is safely and securely stored for eternity.

The SAS MIST Process

This is one way of doing it, but obviously, we are increasing the waste volume by a factor of three or four. It seems contra intuitive to create more waste just to treat the waste. Alternatively, what we can do is add a little bit of our SAS chemistry and put it through our SAS MIST process. What happens then is rather than adding stabilizers to the waste to turn it into a solid material, we actually remove the water and the oil, leaving only dry solids. The oil is recovered, and the water will be reused. We are left only with the dry solids that we then transport to the disposal site.

 The Advantage

That is a huge saving, rather than increasing the waste volume by 300% or 400 %. we are actually reducing the volume of the waste by about 90 % here, so the carbon footprint is going to be substantially smaller. In the case of this particular example, you're looking at over 20 000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions for stabilizing the waste and transporting it or you're looking at about 1400 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions for the SAS MIST process and only transporting a much smaller fraction of the waste. The impact on the carbon footprint by actually treating at the site of storage or generation is absolutely massive.

Your Benefit

How will this help you? By decreasing treatment costs, reducing long-term exposure, making your processes more efficient and staying ahead of your competition by being part of a progressive and sustainable route to Zero Carbon.

Download the Companion Factsheet to the video to find out more.

The Role of Carbon Offsetting on the road to Net Zero

Achieving Net Zero can deliver a range of business advantages– from demonstrating environmental credentials and building customer confidence in your brand, to improving staff engagement with your broader sustainability programmes. It can even deliver business growth opportunities – building resilience in supply chains, supporting growth in key markets and helping to launch new products and services. 

Companies are taking the lead by measuring, reducing and where necessary, offsetting their emissions. Some of the world’s biggest Oil & Gas Companies are taking the lead in making commitments to meet Net Zero targets. Is it about offsetting?

It is frequently stated that the road to Net Zero is one strewn with good intentions, or in this particular case, one of offset responsibilities. Many industrial processes cannot be replaced with carbon neutral methodologies. It is the case that once a full implementation of reduce, replace and manage is exhausted that the role of carbon offset becomes important. 

Can offsetting carbon emissions really tackle climate change? 

Offsetting alone is clearly not going to tackle climate change. It is simply a part of a planned strategy of carbon reduction.  But even in the best case scenario this transition will take time and in the meantime everyone will have a carbon footprint, regardless of how hard they try to reduce it.  Until we reach a zero-carbon world we need to do something about this unavoidable, residual carbon footprint. Paying to reduce an equivalent amount of carbon emissions through voluntary carbon offsetting is the most cost effective, fast and efficient way of doing this. 

Isn’t carbon offsetting is just a short term ‘stop gap measure’ for businesses to carry on emitting greenhouse gases, rather than address their carbon footprint? Businesses nearly always reduce first. In reality, nearly all businesses invest in reducing their in-house carbon footprint before considering a payment to offset what remains. Internal reduction activities frequently save money, while investing in carbon offsetting involves a financial outlay. Few businesses make this sort of investment without first getting their own house in order and being fully committed to operating sustainably. 

The alternative is doing nothing. Even if a business has done all it can to reduce its emissions it will still have a carbon footprint. Paying to offset them, is better for our environment than the alternative, which is to do nothing at all. Offsetting delivers real benefits for the environment and local communities. 

SAS MIST Process - how it helps with your waste, step-by-step.

Is carbon offsetting enough?

Offsetting is a first step in the right direction and meant to balance the scales. However, current governmental and social pressures push towards a more pro-active strategy in tackling CO2 emissions and tacking responsibility along the corporate chain. Offsetting an already reduced amount of emissions is better. To remain competitive, oil companies must demonstrate they have taken steps in transforming their operations to become as carbon neutral as possible.

SAS Environmental Services has taken this philosophy to heart. Using a combination of innovative chemistry, state-of-the-art engineering and over 40 years of cumulated experience in the industry, we help oil waste companies to reduce their oil waste through low energy processes.

Download our SAS MIST 220 to discover more.