ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF DRILLING OPERATIONS WASTEWATER IN PETROLEUM FIELDS

Drilling is a large process that generates large amounts of waste and can have negative impacts on the environment. The drilling process produces both water and drilling waste, which can have harmful effects on the environment and human health. Drilling waste must be managed properly to avard its impact on the environment and people. The present study has been undertaken to assess the environmental impacts of wastes, and to evaluate the approoch to solve the wastes problem. In this work Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix (RIAM) technique was used to select the best drilling wastes management sgotem. The study recommended that choice of disposal partly underground as the most binificail technique for wastes disposal, most reasonable for environmental pollution, as the other options for waste management were time and high environmental impactmy. Results obtained from this work indicate that theramal treatment was an important prosess in drilling treatment unit to manage the drilling wells wastes. Also, results revealed that there are three environmental options for waste management i. Above ground disposal; ii. Total underground disposal; iii. Partially underground disposal. Using RIAM as a modern technique for best alternative selection, proved that the second technique (total underground disposal) had the most positive outcome and least negative impacts on environment. It can be demonstrate that the wastes produced in the oil fields have great negative impacts on environment, so it must be disposed using the seconde option. Finally, using modern techniques like RIAM helps to find the best alternatives and stronglly recommended to use in other cases.