Recovery of Valuable Compounds using Supercritical Fluids
Lubricant Oil Recovery from Drilling Waste
Rotary drilling operations generate oil contaminated waste. Recovery and reuse of this oil reduces the overall cost of drilling while reducing the overall environmental impact from drilling operations.
Application Overview
SCFCan’s drilling waste treatment process takes raw drilling waste as a continuous feed to a high pressure extractor. Clean solids flow out of the extractor. The Supercritical Carbon Dioxide with the extracted oil proceeds to the low pressure separator where the oil condenses out and is collected for reuse in the industry. The Supercritical Carbon Dioxide is repressurized and returned to the extractor.
The process has been proven at pilot scale. The pilot system is automated with appropriate measures to maintain steady operation as well as controlled, emergency shutdown features.
The overall energy efficiency of a supercritical carbon dioxide extraction cycle leads to low energy requirements and correspondingly low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is projected that SCFCan‘s drilling waste treatment technology will reduce lifecycle GHG by 75%. This projection requires verification once the commercial facility is in operation. This projection is also tied to the carbon intensity of the facility’s electricity supply. In Alberta, the electricity supply’s carbon intensity is expected to diminish as the province phases out of coal.
Drilling Waste & its Market
Two-third of crude oil and natural gas drilling operations produce hazardous drilling waste that are contaminated with non-aqueous drilling fluid. SCFCan‘s innovative technology offers:
- Recovery and reuse of valuable lubricant oil
- Highly profitable operation
- Cost savings to drilling operations
- More than 75% net life cycle GHG emission reduction
