US Liquids optimizing E&P waste management at Fourchon
US Liquids of Louisiana (USLL) has opened its second transfer station in Port Fourchon, Louisiana. The strategically positioned facility offers a 24-hour-a-day/seven-day-a-week full-service marine operation for oilfield drilling and production waste disposal. This transfer station will provide significant savings to E&P operators who rely on barges to transport waste to the USLL network of disposal facilities.
As generators of millions of barrels per year of produced water, oil- and water-based drilling fluids, cuttings, workover and completion fluids, and production wastes, operators in the Gulf of Mexico spend millions per year on regulatory compliance and waste transportation, treatment, and disposal. Having an additional facility in Fourchon reduces transportation costs, which contribute significantly to the total E&P waste disposal cost.
In recent years, activity increases have strained barge capacity and driven rates up. At some facilities there are long waits to offload waste. An extensive USLL network of transfer facilities in Morgan City, Cameron, Fourchon, Intracoastal City, and Venice in Louisiana benefits Gulf Coast operators with lower-cost, one stop disposal, cleaning services, and washout bays. The investments made by USLL to upgrade transfer station capabilities translate into significant savings to operators who rely on barges to transport waste to treatment facilities.
“Helping our customers lower their transportation costs is part of our commitment to remain the low-cost provider of E&P waste management services,” says William Werdenberg, USLL CEO. “With the new 800-ft (244-m) dock in Fourchon, we now provide 1,600 ft (488 m) of water frontage to improve barge turnaround time – a significant increase in our capabilities to serve inland barges in the Fourchon area.”
Zero operator liability a USLL goal
In addition to reducing operators’ transportation costs, USLL has taken steps to cost-effectively minimize or eliminate the operator liability inherent in drilling and producing oil and gas wells. Under the US Superfund law enacted in 1980, cradle-to-grave responsibility for generated wastes became the standard. Thus, if a contractor improperly transports, treats, or disposes of waste, the government may require all companies that generated the waste to share the cost of remediation. USLL has perfected a number of innovative treatment and disposal methods to reduce, reuse, and recycle E&P waste, and for the first time a reliable commercial method has been demonstrated to move the industry much closer to zero operator liability.
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Volume 68 Issue 3
March 2008
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