Case Study: Co-Processing Drill Cuttings To Achieve Circular Economy Goals In Drilling Waste Management
Authors: Khan Riad , Haddad Mohamed , El Swaf Mohamed , Muhammad Khalid , Al Ali Mohamed , Faqir Adnan , Al Ameri Suhail , Al Aleeli Ahmed , Al Marzooqi Adel , Fitriansyah Muhammad 
Published: November 2024

The United Arab Emirates (UAE's) Circular Economy Policy aims to create a sustainable and environmentally friendly economy by focusing on several key areas, one of which is ensuring that economic activity does not harm the environment. It emphasizes the importance of transitioning from a linear economy to a circular one by supporting sustainable consumption and production practices.

With the Oil and Gas sector contributing to up to 50% of the economy, energy companies can have a significant impact on the nation's ability to achieve its economic and sustainability goals. As a major operator in this sector, a commitment was made to enhance production whilst increasing operational efficiency and reducing emissions intensity by twenty-five (25%) by 2030.

This ambitious target requires a balanced approach between growth and sustainability, integrating production enhancement goals with a waste management strategy that incorporates advanced technologies and sustainable practices including circular economy principles and promoting recycle and reuse within production processes.

With respect to offshore drilling, our activities are focused on developing increasingly complex wellbores and the limitations of traditional aqueous-based drilling fluids have become more apparent over time. The strategy of employing Non-Aqueous Fluids (NAFs) in drilling operations to address the challenges posed by these complex wellbore environments has resulted in significant improvements in drilling efficiencies (non-productive time reduction) through improved wellbore stability, torque and drag response, formation damage, etc., all of which can be related to the superior performance that NAFs offer.

Drilling with NAF leads to the generation of significant volumes of NAF contaminated cuttings which can have up to thirty-two (32%) by weight of oil content. Zero-discharge of oily cuttings is a requirement in the UAE, and as a result the increased use of NAFs in operations required an increase in all the related support services including increased shore base storage capacities, supply vessels for NAF delivery, cuttings handling and storage systems, skip and ship services for jack up locations and finally treatment and disposal options.

Over time, capacity limitations led to the accumulation of skips at shore base which was exacerbated with the onset of the Covid pandemic and limited access to disposal facilities. A multi-disciplinary team was established to evaluate existing facility limitations in conjunction with the plans for increased drilling activities and projections for increased NAF use over the next five years which resulted in the evaluation of various technologies for disposal of NAF cuttings.

This paper presents the results of one of the initiatives to support business continuity, as well as parallel goals for sustainability and adopting circular economy principles, - a pilot project to evaluate co-processing of Non-Aqueous Fluids (NAF) drill cuttings in the cement manufacturing process. The re-use of drill cuttings to produce cement was attractive from a sustainability perspective as a waste product is converted to a viable product for use in construction and related activities.