Rethinking drilling waste management

As Gulf drilling activity scales, operators are rethinking waste management, says Pierre-Marie Hinden, UAE general manager, TWMA

In the pursuit of expanding oil and gas production across the Gulf, the question increasingly front of mind for many operators is how much more output can be achieved by improving operational efficiency, rather than simply adding more drilling activity.

That question is coming into sharper focus now as the UAE races toward expanding production capacity. ADNOC is leading the charge, accelerating toward its goal of reaching 5 million barrels per day production capacity by 2027 and potentially beyond if needed. And the UAE is not alone as Saudi Arabia continues to ramp up major offshore and unconventional gas developments, while operators across the wider region are expanding drilling campaigns with goals to increase operational capacity.

As Gulf states recover and aggressively rebuild from impacts of the conflict on energy assets, this momentum is expected to continue well through 2027 and beyond. This in turn is driving operators to look more closely at their operations to find efficiencies and recover value. Every operational decision is under increased pressure to maximise performance while minimising cost and, as a result, leading operators are beginning to challenge established practices and examine how every aspect of operations can be adjusted to improve performance.

That includes areas such as drilling waste management, an essential but often overlooked part of drilling operations, which if optimised, can unlock major cost, efficiency, safety and sustainability benefits.

Is traditional drilling waste management still fit for purpose?

Offshore, a typical approach to tackling drilling waste is skip and ship. Here, waste is collected offshore, loaded into skips, transported by vessel to shore and then processed and disposed of on land. It remains a familiar and compliant approach, but one that can also introduce operational complexity, logistical dependency, high emissions and significant hidden costs.

An alternative method is at-source treatment which in a lot of ways, substantially outperforms traditional approaches including across safety, cost, environmental and overall operational efficiency. Rather than transporting waste back onshore, thermal treatment technologies such as the RotoMill allow drill cuttings, slops and sludges to be processed directly at the wellsite. That means fewer vessel movements, fewer lifting operations and significantly reduced logistics requirements. At the same time, valuable base fluids can be recovered from drill cuttings and reused onsite.

To put this into perspective, since 2014, in collaboration with a major operator in the UAE, TWMA’s RotoMill has processed more than 600,000 tonnes of drilling waste, accumulated legacy waste and slop at source. Working with the operator across multiple fields has eliminated more than 70,000 km of transport, reducing carbon emissions by 50%, as well as significantly reducing handling and logistics requirements. Combined with the recovery of approximately US$78mn worth of base fluid for reuse, the total savings are in excess of US$200 mn.

As production ambitions and drilling activity continue to scale across the Gulf, but so do does attention on cost, efficiency and sustainability, case studies like this show what can be achieved by optimising every part of the operation.

What is the real cost of offshore operations?

While operators are increasingly taking a total cost of ownership (TCO) approach across the well lifecycle, there can still be a tendency to focus on upfront costs. But the reality is, what may appear a lower-cost solution on face value, can create wider operational inefficiencies and spend elsewhere.

Traditional skip and ship approaches, for example, may reduce costs at the rig site, but they can also increase vessel demand, fuel consumption and handling requirements and disposal costs. Predicting those knock-on effects is not always easy, and this is where specialist drilling waste management expertise, when brought into projects early, can help operators gain a clearer view of the full operational picture and what tailored solution works for their needs. That includes navigating relevant regulatory requirements, as well as understanding that offshore processing solutions can deliver savings of up to 60% compared to traditional skip and ship methods, or that for a typical 60-day operation, total costs for skip and ship can reach around US$1.24mn, compared to approximately US$510,000 for offshore processing.

Looking ahead, the ambitions of the region, as they always have been, are significant, and we see that through key operators’ production ambitions, as just one example. But scale and expansion is really only one part of the picture. Without doubling down on optimisation of all drilling processes, efficiency, cost and sustainability gains will be left on the table at a time when there is no room for anything but profitable growth.