Mercury the barometer for Asia’s asset-disposal readiness
Southeast Asia’s nascent decommissioning market can look to the Gulf of Mexico for guidance on a range of issues, but it is also scouting for innovative solutions to some very local challenges – such as the need for dedicated scrapyards to serve multiple jurisdictions.
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The similarities between Asia and the GoM begin with the types of platforms used in both regions, Versabar technical director John Greeves told DecomWorld during the recent Decommissioning and Mature Wells Management Conference in Kuala Lumpur.
Of the 10 different types of production installations found in offshore operations in Asia, 95% are fixed platforms – and these have almost-identical technical specifications to their counterparts in the GoM, according to Greeves. He also pointed to environmental similarities: both marine environments are exposed to warm weather and extended periods of low tides, making it easier to operate than in the North Sea; like older GoM assets, Asian platforms are generally not far from the shore and are close to established resources.
Finding a home for scrap disposal is not so easy. Among the possible locations is a dockyard in the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo, home to about one-third of Malaysian platforms aged 25 years or more. But uncertainty over the timeline for regional decommissioning is discouraging yard owners from converting their facilities, according to Thor Sterker, co-founder of Dutch firm Platform Brokers.
It would not make sense for every country to build their own scrapyard, Sterker told DecomWorld, “because there is not enough material coming in the next couple of years, [and] not all the platforms are going to be decommissioned at once”.
Mercury rising
Any regional project will need to include a solution for mercury decontamination as, thanks to its highly-volcanic geologic endowment, Southeast Asia has the world’s highest levels of mercury concentrations in petroleum reservoirs.
In the Gulf of Thailand, an estimated 100-400 micrograms (µg) can be found in each cubic meter (m³) of natural gas, and 400-1200 µg per kilogram of condensate, according to the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). In Indonesia, the concentration of mercury in natural gas is 200-300 µg/ m³ and in Malaysia it is 1-20 µg/ m³. In the Gulf of Mexico, the level is just 0.02-0.4 µg/ m³. In one SPE case study, a petroleum field in the Gulf of Thailand was found to generate about 250-300 tons of mercury-contaminated waste each year.
The Crude Oil Quality Association, formerly the Refiners Crude Oil Quality Group, found in a 2007 study of US oil supply that Asian crude oil contained 220.1 µg/kg, 25-275 times higher than the levels of mercury in other regions.
Source: Crude Oil Quality Association
Management of mercury-contaminated waste is not common practice in Asian countries and options are limited. Until recently, operators looking to decontaminate assets had no choice but to send contaminated parts to either of Begemann Environmental Technology’s (BMT) two mercury-recycling facilities in Groningen, Netherlands or Antwerp, Belgium.
In 2013 BMT opened a new facility in Bangkok under its wholly owned Begemann Mercury Technology Pacific Co., capable of recycling 1,500 t/year of mercury waste. The Bangkok facility operates near full capacity, catering to both the energy, dental and healthcare sectors. By the end of 2013, BMT announced it was considering future expansion due to the size of Thailand’s energy sector.
Floating a solution
In addition to meeting local needs, future scrapyard operators will need to ensure compliance with the Basel Convention on movements and disposal of hazardous wastes. Under the convention, yard owners must provide the relevant national authority with an inventory of the types, quantities and properties of waste it expects to receive, and how it will safely process the material.
Moreover, removal of mercury from contaminated assets such as separator vessels, manifolds, piping and gas turbines requires heating the equipment to more than 800°C – a task that is costly and risky, according to Sterker.
Platform Brokers is preparing its own mercury-decontamination solution – the Floating Decontamination and Disposal Vessel (FDDV). Universiti Teknologi Petronas, a subsidiary of Malaysia’s state-owned oil company has agreed to collaborate on a $400,000, six-to-eight month feasibility study, with additional partners also being sought. Petronas is compiling a list of platforms which could be serviced by the vessel in one sweep, Sterker said.
The FDDV would enable users to conduct the most crucial steps out on the rig. This would save them the trouble of using onshore yards and applying for licences to transport hazardous materials, Sterker explained. A smaller number of skilled laborers and engineers would be needed to conduct the work offshore than would otherwise be required back on land, he added. Platform Brokers is looking to address whether the vessel can be used to clean contaminated soil from the seabed.
Given the vessel would move between the territorial waters of the member states of the ASEAN Council of Petroleum, Platform Brokers is hoping to secure governmental support for the project. Financial backing would also help pay for the FDDV’s maintenance in periods of low decommissioning activity – a crucial consideration for all innovators in a region in which the timeline for decommissioning is still uncertain.
By Lionel Mok