Q? Discuss the impact of Oil and Gas Exploration, Production and Distribution on the Environment.
Answer :
Human civilization is continuously searching for and needs energy resources to evolve, grow, and survive. Since the concept of globalization occurred, the need has kept increasing continuously, and the ever-growing human population has accelerated exploring all the available options for cheap energy.
This exploration is not only necessary for energy needs but also for the economic growth of the countries. The Petroleum industry has spread itself into the consumer goods market by being one of the core ingredients in many products.
This is what makes this industry truly global, from America to Asia and from the North to the South Pole. Oil and Gas products have served humans as primary energy sources for a long time and are required to be sustained for the foreseeable future. This resource has become so important that it has created war conditions between certain countries and still poses a threat.
This essay assignment discusses the Impact of the Oil and Gas Exploration on water pollution. This paper will discuss the various technologies and government regulations to combat persistent water pollution.
Petroleum is basically a mixture of Hydrocarbons created by organic material degradation under Earth’s surface. The final products are natural/petroleum gas, lubricants, petrochemicals, fuel oil, biofuel, etc.
Consequently, the use increased significantly, and this industry threatens to affect all prospects of nature, air, water, soil, and all living beings. Pollution, being the first of its impacts, has been created during all stages of its production, exploration, refining, and distribution as well.
All these stages create more than 800 chemicals, which are released as wastewater, gas, solid wastes, and aerosols (Chalmers, 2008). On the social, economic, and cultural front, it has brought many changes. The land use pattern for small businesses has changed, such as sites for fishing, hunting, agriculture, etc.
These industries cause immigration issues due to jobs and opportunities in the area (Slee, 2015). The income difference and other factors cause inflation, which in turn changes the culture and local value system. The area’s aesthetics and transportation system will also be permanently harmed.
The combustion process, flaring venting, purging gases, airborne particulars, and fugitive gases from loading operations create atmospheric issues. These issues cause global warming, ozone depletion, and diseases in all living beings.
The installation, contamination by spilling, and leakage cause soil erosion, depleting forests and living species. Plants and animals are directly affected by such changes. The natural habitat, breading area, and finally, vegetation removal make it difficult for them to survive and force them to immigrate. It threatens ecological balance by inflicting biodiversity losses on the earth.
Nowadays, along with crude oil and gas within the sediments, hydrocarbons are also being exploited for petroleum products (Pichtel, 2016). During exploration, possible reservoirs are identified through drilling or seismic techniques.
It identifies the statistics regarding the possible amounts of oil and gas present in the reservoir and assesses the quality of it. This process can be carried out in terrestrial and in marine places as well. As the reservoir is identified, the fuel is extracted by drilling wells, using technologies. The drill is kept cool by using various lubricants.
During this whole process, excess gases are vented into the air, and acids are injected to prevent clogging at these sites (Voulvoulis, 2015). The hydrocarbons are then separated into gas and liquids. The construction of these sites causes social and environmental changes.
Once the extraction is done, the output is refined to make it saleable. It includes physical separation and chemical treatments. Various kinds of products are made based on the composition. Refineries have distillation, cracking and crude receiving facilities. Then, finally transportation is done to make the products reach the people. This is done using pipelines, boats, vessels and tankers.
There are many incidents in Fuel production industry. On the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon, one of the largest spills of all times occurred at Jiyal power station in 2006.
UK, Norway, Italy and the Netherlands are the countries in Europe where most of the offshore oil and gas installations are lying.
There are approximately 1000 of these installations in European Union and approximately half of this figure is covered by UK. There has already been an incident in1980s on the Norway and UK sites, which killed hundreds of workers.
The fauna diversity and dominance reduces due to contamination by OPFs and the settlement of suspended fine cutting. It affects areas ranging from 3 to 6 km from the drilling site.
Discharge of oil based drilling fluids, and chemical, harms the quality of water as well. During the pipeline placement, especially where the pipelines are trenched and buried can impact the seabed temporarily (Obayori, 2015).
Vessels that deploy pipelines also harm the seabed. In soft sediment areas, reestablishment happens within 1-2 years, but in harder substitute regions, it may take up to 10 years for restoration. The platform lights and fares in this industry attract birds and pose mortal danger to them.
The oil spills have temporary as well as long term effects. The oil trapped in stream beds slowly poisons the area, creating a long-term effect. Freshwater bodies are harmed by oil spill and also poses threat to human health.
These places are used as nesting grounds, food stock, and drinkable water sources. This becomes deadly, as these species are at the top of the food chain. Oil spills in the ocean collect on the banks, disturbing the soil as well as the aesthetic view.
Policies and regulations are needed to manage and control harmful effects. The international regulations are implemented by the national government. Subordinate regulations and guidelines are provided to support the main cause.
Quantitative control, performance assessment, negotiated agreement, self-regulation, and goal setting would also help. The Environmental Impact Assessment majorly influences the consent for important activities. Various factors are necessary for the effective application of these legislations.
Firstly, appropriate International and Nation Laws with regulations and guidelines are necessary. Set of legislations with clean and crisp responsibilities and liabilities will follow. The decision on the activities should be coherent (Chimowitz, 2015).
Proper standards for operations and protocols with suitable monitors would be apt. Funds, genuine authorities, timely sanction and political will for the enforcements in addition to reporting of goal achievement would complete the process of application.
Global organizations are responsible for ensuring that all nations follow international conventions and treaties. The 1992 UNCED ‘Earth Summit’ enforced all the above-mentioned rules.
The Montreal Protocol of the Vienna Convention was formed to reduce ozone-depleting substances. The Basel Convention was to control hazardous wastes’ transformative movement. To keep pace with the marine environment, there are various conventions and agreements, like the Convention on migratory species and the Biodiversity Convention.
The regional regulatory framework is formed by OSPAR, Barcelona, and the Middle East ‘Gulf Region’. The European Union implements its environmental principles through its members’ national legislations (Venables, 2010).
They have made a set of principles like ‘polluters pay’, rectification-at-source and integration of the environment, etc. European Union also exercises precautionary principle by establishing ‘Environmental Quality Objectives’. It accepts sustainable development by adopting ‘Integrated Pollution Control’.
Many NGOs are working towards limiting these environmental damages. One such organization is WWF, which is a member of the Arctic Council Oil Spill Task Force delegation and urges tighter policies and standards for spillage in the Arctic (Jevnaker, 2015).
Using tools called ‘RACER’ it identifies areas that are sensitive for wildlife and people and re needed to be protected from Oil and Petroleum Industry.
Learning from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Spill accident, European Union sought after ‘Communication of the safety of offshore oil and gas activities’ under ENPI framework.
The EU also funds the Sustainable Water Management and Depollution of the Mediterranean, which supports the depollution of the Mediterranean by enforcing sustainable value management policies.
Under a program called ‘Horizon 2020 Initiative’, it strives to depollute the Mediterranean by the year 2020 by controlling the source of pollution, which contributes 80% to the total pollution. In 2011, the EU also proposed an ‘offshore protocol’, which is supposed to prevent offshore exploration and exploitation activities to de-pollute the Mediterranean (Kneese, 2015). It would also comply the operator for environmental cleanup from 22km to 370 km.
New technologies have limited the number and size of ‘footprints’—the areas disturbed by exploring and drilling. Now, we need to dig only a few wells to find oil reserves, using 3D/4D seismic technology, a global positioning system, a remote sensing device, and satellites.
The new drilling devices do horizontal and directional drilling, which helps produce oil from a larger area using a single well (Corntassel, 2008). Durable forged alloy and polycrystalline diamond have improved productivity. This results in worker safety and habitat protection as well.
Gas, Thermal and chemical injection techniques can retrieve up to 50% of the oil in place, preventing spilling. These techniques have reduced the emission of methane. These techniques are enhance by 4D time lapsing imaging.
Through the’ Rigs to Reef’ program, rigs are toppled offshore, which does not disturb the natural marine habitat. These technologies can secure resources in the Arctic region, cities, and airports without affecting the surface. Ice pads, roads, multilateral completions, and injection of drilling waste reduce cost and decrease harmful impact.
The international fuel industries have various business charters (for example, International Chamber of Commerce and E&P Forum) and guidelines through which they contribute to the environment. MARPOL, UN Law of sea and Framework convention on climate change are other international environmental conventions (Fragouli, 2015).
There are various industry guidelines on environment, which are, Environmental principle(E&P forum, EUROPIA), Management Systems(UNEP, API), Chemical usage(API), Water management(E&P Forum), Drilling muds(E & P Forum), oil spill(UNEP,IPIECA), Decommissioning ( E&P forum).
The technical guidelines include, seismic operations (IAGC), Chemical usage (OLF), Atmospheric emissions (OLF, E&P forum), produced water (E&P Forum) and oil spills (IMO, IPIECA).
Common legislation laws also apply to this industry. Some of them are petroleum law, marine pollution, integrated pollution control, and permitted chemicals.
A basic infrastructure is also needed to implement these regulations, for example Regulations, environmental survey, approvals, emergency response, logistics, external services, technical services, training institutes etc. It is recommended that the governments of different nations should focus to attain this basic infrastructure.
The exploration, production, refining and distribution processes have been a challenge for oil industry in environmental context. It has become an issue not just on environmental part, but it has also become a demand on moral and ethical fronts.
It affects the Earth and the industry’s business as green energy sources are becoming more accessible. Though the environmental costs are high, economic and other benefits also influence the decision to explore and distribute fuel.
Cooperation and management between industry, government, and the common man are necessary to control the situation, as the environment is suffering, and if timely steps are not taken, civilization might pay for it later (Canuto, 2010).
It is recommended that internal and national treaties be supported through various means, described in this essay, to ensure similar laws worldwide and prevent further damage. NGOs must also be supported for these causes to spread the idea and generate awareness among common people.
Every industry process harms the environment in some way, but new technologies have enabled us to overcome each of them. However, some damages are irreversible, and to control them, we need to reduce the fuel industry’s consumption to as low as possible to save resources and the environment.
References :
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Corntassel, J. (2008). Toward sustainable self-determination: Rethinking the contemporary Indigenous-rights discourse. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political,33(1), 105-132.
Collier, P., & Venables, A. J. (2010). International rules for trade in natural resources. Journal of Globalization and Development, 1(1).
Gibbins, J., & Chalmers, H. (2008). Carbon capture and storage. Energy Policy,36(12), 4317-4322.
Kneese, A. V. (2015). Water Pollution: Economics Aspects and Research Needs. Routledge.
Chimowitz, M., Crooks, J. A., Davies, G., Debats, S., Edwards, R., Sanchez-Eppler, E., … & Mauzerall, D. L. (2015). Addressing air and water concerns: State policy opportunities in unconventional oil and gas.
Fragouli, E., & Jumabayev, K. (2015). SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY: THE CASE OF KAZAKHSTAN. International Journal of Information, Business and Management, 7(3), 135.
Jevnaker, T., Lunde, L., & Skjærseth, J. B. (2015). EU-Norway Energy Relations towards 2050: From Fossil Fuels to Low-Carbon Opportunities?. InDecarbonization in the European Union (pp. 222-243). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Obayori, O. S., Salam, L. B., Anifowoshe, W. T., Odunewu, Z. M., Amosu, O. E., & Ofulue, B. E. (2015). Enhanced Degradation of Petroleum Hydrocarbons in Corn-Steep-Liquor-Treated Soil Microcosm. Soil and Sediment Contamination: An International Journal, 24(7), 731-743.
Pichtel, J. (2016). Oil and Gas Production Wastewater: Soil Contamination and Pollution Prevention. Applied and Environmental Soil Science, 2016.
Slee, A. K. B. (2015). In Oil We Trust: a discourse analysis of Norwegian petroleum and environmental policies in the High North.
Voulvoulis, N., & Georges, K. (2015). Industrial and Agricultural Sources and Pathways of Aquatic Pollution. Impact of Water Pollution on Human Health and Environmental Sustainability, 29.