Oil is one of the most essential commodities in modern times and so exploration and extraction has become a multi-million pound industry. Crude oil is extracted from the ground either on land or under water or ice. On land a large oil field can cover very large areas, covering several hundred kilometres. Multiple wells are established and spread over the whole oil field. As well as oil extraction, there are often exploratory wells along the margins and pipelines connected to the wells to transport the oil elsewhere. When such a large area is being contaminated, it becomes imperative to develop proper oil field waste disposal methods.
As the demand for oil continues to escalate, the problem of oil field waste disposal has arisen. All oil reserves have layers of hydrocarbon and water and in order to carry out the separation process, more water has to be pumped in. The effect of this is that there is a lot of contaminated water to deal with. This along with tank cleaning, waste management and oil spill response are the vital services for oil field house keeping. As we become more environmentally aware, it is so important to keep these oil fields as ‘clean’ as possible so that the earth is not left contaminated for many years to come. We have all seen the effects of oil spills on the oceans but we also need to be aware of oil spills contaminating land. This can often be just as difficult to deal with.
