Oil and Gas Exploration Impact on Environment

Question: Describe the oil and gas exploration impact on environment. Answer: During the whole process of oil and gas exploration there are many activities being carried out, some of them are due diligence, prequalification, exploration seismic, site survey, exploration drilling, appraisal drilling, development and production. Some of these initial activities like exploration seismic, prequalification are carried for a very shorter duration than other activities that follows, so they have a less impact then those (Vidic, 2013). These activities have a great impact on the environment and we should now take some serious sustainable actions to overcome them. The objective of this essay is to discuss the impact of oil and gas exploration on air pollution. There is a lot of pollution due to earth moving equipment, drilling machines, blasting operation etc. There is a huge impact on the air quality during the exploration phase due to emission and dust particles from earth moving equipment-drilling machines. These can be emission of harmful gasses like carbon monoxid e, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen oxide (Yusuf, 2013). Due to the realize of such harmful gasses there is some impact on the climate as well because some of them are green house gasses due to which there can also be slight rise in temperature in those areas. The oil pollution can also have an impact on the cultural resources of the place due to these exploration activities. Amount of disturbance on the surface and subsurface level is minimal during exploration phase, but the machinery of exploration could effect the material present on the surface level, which could be of culturally interest of people there. So sometimes it affect the cultural resources of the people present at the sight. The impact on the ecological environment depends on the phase of the oil and gas exploration activity being done. The impact on the ecological resources like vegetation wildlife, flora fauna, species and habitat would be minimal at the exploration because of the limited level of activity. As the introduction of seismic survey, this puts some impact on the wildlife of the surroundings, and when the exploratory activities are well established it puts a great impact on the wildlife and the vegetation of the surroundings and basically destroys it. It would be correct to say that because the activities in exploration are limited so these is very less impact on the resources available in the areas of exploration so environmental justice is maintained in the areas of exploration. The exploration activities produce much of waste materials like plastic, mud, paper; fuel, human waste etc. seismic and exploration produce such waste. Waste produced during exploration is lesser as compared to drilling during production well, at that stage that is a huge production of waste, which include drilling fuel, mud, used machinery oil, solid waste and garbage. And if not disposed of in a environmentally friendly way these can have a huge impact on our environment. Due to these exploration activities there can be serious health issues to the natives and workers. There can be on work accidents due to some vehicle accidents or some serious disease due to presence of dangerous gases and dust, and presence of hazardous material all around the place (Podobnik, 2015). The potential of these health and safety issues would be low at exploration level due to low activity level. Exploration activities result in temporary and localized impact on the land use. Due to these activities being carried out there could be temporary disturbance in the vicinity of exploratory well e.g. recreational activities or gazing of livestocks. The leftover material from the exploration activities can kill the livestock if they accidently eat them. Exploratory activities but in no case can effect mining activities, military operation and aviation activities. These are the nonrenewable resources. The exploration activities have a impact on the paleontological resources as well, as there is disturbance on the surface due to activities like vehicle roaming around, mining, drilling, which may erode these resources, but they do not have much impact because the resources beneath the surface are protected, for example there is very less impact of the exploration activities on the fossil fuels of a particular land (Werner, 2015). The air pollution is directly related to the socio economic culture and the environment. They do not put a large amount of impact on the socioeconomic impact of the particular place because the exploratory activities are not permanent and they cannot provide employment for whole life. The earths surface effects due to heavy traffic machinery can occur in the soil. Due to the movement of this heavy machinery, the moisture, water retention capability decreases and the chances of wind erosion and water erosion increase. This reduces the aeration, permeability and cause potential runoff and gully erosion. The impact on the soil and geological resources are directly proportional to the amount of the work being carried out on the surface of the land. This could also lead to depletion of hydrocarbons, sand and gravel resources. There are an impact on the water resources due to the exploration activities but it is not significant. Due to Exploratory wellbores there is a contact between the exploratory machine and the surface ground water, which may result in depletion of that ground water. It may lead in decreasing the pressure of the ground water and may also lessen the quality of the water, but still the impact of exploratory activities on the water resources are very l ess. It would be correct to say that the exploratory activities have a temporary impact on the visual resources because the landscape is slightly modifies or degraded due to scene of activities being carried out on the land, so this may degrade the scenic beauty of a naturally beautiful looking place. The exploratory activities have a slight temporary effect on the transportation; they may interfere in the personal transportation and may result in lowering the pace of the public and personal transportation of mode (Muehlenbachs, 2013). There are various technologies and measures that can be taken to reduce the impacts on air. It would help to reduce the quality and the quantity of air pollution. One of the important measure is carbon oxide capture and sequestration. As there is release of various dangerous gases and dust during the process of oil and gas extraction process, so it becomes very important to control the level of such gases to a threshold level. One of the dangerous gases is carbon dioxide. And this technique is dedicated to control the level of carbon dioxide. In the atmosphere. It is a new technological measure, which can help, in stopping fossil erosion by capturing and sequestering carbon oxide from various resources and activities of extraction and storing them away from the atmosphere so that it cant have a adverse effect on the atmosphere. Additional amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cause increase in temperature, as it is a green house gas. The one-year monitoring program can be discus sed as: There are various techniques by which we can capture carbon dioxide like afforestation (Davies, 2014), reservoirs and ageing oil wells, liquefaction and dry ice technology. Moreover carbon dioxide can be captured I oil fields with the help of seismology technique. Then there is conversion of carbon dioxide to various carbon forms but it can take several years as it is a long chemical process. The whole basic idea behind using this technique is to separate the carbon dioxide from the other gases released during the process by dissolving into various solvents and then trucking into the vessels so that it can be injected into the ground surface so that it can be kept isolated from the atmosphere and it cant add to the green house effect (Jenner, 2013). This is a great technique and is also sustainable over the long period of time in controlling the level of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Another recommended technique is Zero oil/gas flare. It is a technique of in which gas and oil are produced without burning the gas and oil into the atmosphere therefore controlling the effects of green house and other hazardous effects of burning these gases into atmosphere. One of the main objectives of the zero gas oil flare technique is that it is very cost effective when it comes to cleaning up of the gases into the atmosphere. To implement this it has three stages. In the very first stage oil and gas are burnt in the atmosphere and test separate is places to discharge the contaminated water into the sea. In order to prevent the corrosion of the sea level and maintaining its quality clean up facilities are used to increase the hydrogen ion concentration and to recover the oil released into the water. In second stage the acidic effluent water is neutralized with the help of chemical known as tri-oxo-carbonate (Barker, 2013). The main purpose of this stage is to recover the oil fr om the contaminated water. In the third phase of the process there is use of portable multi phase periodic well tester which leads to reduction of the oil flaring further by almost 60 percent. The main purpose of this technique is to keep the atmosphere free from the gases, which lead to the green house effect. The main reason of the air pollution is the oil spillage, rusting of pipes, and carelessness on the operation side in decomposing of the oil waste. And the main reason of the oil spillage is the oil leaks, rusting and the well blowout. These are the result of use of faulty equipment, low quality equipment, low maintenance, unskilled employees and employee faults. So to overcome this company should have a very good maintenance program and should instantaneously react in any emergency. This is known as site restoration, thus the maintaining of the site after drilling process and keeping the site in good condition. Thus by doing it to every site after drilling and other oil and gas extraction processes will leave every site pollution free, like for example zero flare is a example of site restoration in which the site is free of any hazardous gases. A majority of the research work shows that the majority of the pipeline explosion happens due to the over use of the equipment, use of faulty equipment, ignorance of the staff in overlooking the equipment and poor maintenance of the equipment. Many of the oil and gas extraction facilities all around the world are very old even centuries old. And the equipment are old too (Bamberger, 2012). And because of this when the equipment become old, it chances of getting rusty gets very high with even a small trace of acidity and the equipment getting in touch of acidity is a very common phenomenon, so it resulted in pipeline explosion, so in order to prevent this phenomenon facilities should be having a proper maintenance and they should be renewed after a certain time period. The staff of the extraction process should be completely aware with their responsibility and properly carry out the duties for effective quality control. With the above discussion it can be said that these are the measures that can be effective in controlling the adverse effects of the oil and gas extraction processes on our environment. All the stakeholders should join hands so that the complete benefits could be realized to all the stakeholders. References Bamberger, M. and Oswald, R.E., 2012. 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