Interview 2014

TCO Strives to be a Leader in Environmental Stewardship

Exclusive interview of Robert Guldner - General Manager of Operational Excellence / Health, Environment and Safety, Tengizchevroil LLP for the official website 10th Anniversary Central Asian International Exhibition and Conference - EcoTech 2014 and the "Development of infrastructure for waste disposal in Kazakhstan" conference.

- Mr. Guldner, what are the priority areas of TCO on the environmental issues? And what progress your company has made under the environmental program?

- Environmental protection is a top priority at Tengizchevroil (TCO). TCO strives to achieve optimal results in environmental protection through a continual focus on the operational excellence of our processes.

We are committed to continually improving freshwater conservation and wastewater discharge compliance, reducing air emissions, and reducing waste while promoting recycling and reuse.

TCO has made great strides in reducing air emissions by implementing a portfolio of major capital projects in Tengiz. Our overall 70% reduction in tons of air emissions from 2000 through 2013 is an example of what our efforts have achieved. TCO has reached these historic lows in air emissions while increasing crude oil production by 158 percent.

Our efforts in waste reduction resulted in a 40% reduction in the volume of wastes TCO diverted from landfilling (diversion rate) in 2013.

- Please, tell us about the peculiarities of the gas utilization program and freshwater management in your companies?

- Since 2000, TCO has achieved many positive results. We eliminated routine gas flaring in 2009, increased the gas utilization volume by more than 99%, and over a ten-year period reduced the volume of gas flared by 93%. Note that these flaring reduction results were achieved while production volumes increased 158 percent.

TCO was recognized by the Global Gas Flaring Reduction partnership of the World Bank in 2012 as a world leader in reducing gas flaring.

The reduction of emissions is a direct result of a continuous adherence to the TCO Environmental Protection Strategy, which included the implementation of the following projects:

• Gas Processing Capacity Expansion (2001);
• Gas Pipeline Capacity Increase (2002);
• New Commercial Gas Pipeline (2005);
• Replacement of Flare Tips (2007);
• Integrated oil projects (2008);
• Gas Utilization Project (2009);
• Acid Gas Flaring Project (2012);
• Liquid extraction and SGI system purge projects (2013)

I would now like to talk about water use in TCO.

TCO is a leader in the field of water resources management. Conservation of freshwater through reuse and recycling practices is a key part of TCO's water management plan, focusing on sound water management practices to achieve business and environmental performance objectives.

The TCO Water Management Strategy project will identify technically feasible alternative water supplies that will enable TCO operations to further reduce fresh water consumption from the current KTO pipeline. The Caspian Sea, local groundwater resources, and TCO's internal wastewater streams are all being considered as alternative water supplies.

In 2013 TCO commissioned the new Wastewater Treatment Facility, which is designed to treat 6000 m3/day of municipal wastewater. This facility utilizes Sequenced Batch reactor technology to treat sanitary wastewater and is one of the largest wastewater treatment facilities in Kazakhstan.
The new Water Recycling Facility, currently under construction, is designed to treat up to 5000 m3/d of effluent from the Wastewater Treatment Facility to achieve technical water quality via reverse osmosis. The new Water Recycling Facility can produce up to 3600 m3/day of recycled water that will be used for TCO's industrial operations. The recycled water from the Water Recycling Facility operation is expected to increase TCO's annual recycled water rate to 30%. At full production, this allows TCO to reduce its' technical water consumption from current usage rates for current operations by 1.3 million cubic meters per year.

- What modern technologies are used by TCO to reduce environmental impact, optimize the use of natural resources and for waste management?

- For waste, TCO is focused on increasing the volume of the waste we recycle as part of the Green Economy initiative.

At our Integrated Waste Management Facility we not only have world class municipal and industrial landfills with leachate protection and groundwater monitoring, but we treat and process multiple other wastes.

Concrete wastes are processed through our rock crusher unit and the resulting materials are used to construct roads and embankments for waste disposal cells at our landfills. Since commissioning in 2009, the rock crusher has processed 27,000 tons of concrete to reusable crushed rock.

TCO operates a horizontal baler to reduce the volume of wastes such as HDPE containers and waste cardboard in preparation for offsite shipment and recycling.

A Newster 10 unit is used to treat and disinfect medical wastes. The treatment process includes pulverizing the wastes, applying heat and steam, then disinfecting with sodium hypochlorite to sterilize the wastes, reducing it to a hazard class V.

At TCO we use a state of the art Thermomechanical Cuttings Cleaner (TCC) thermal desorption process to treat drill cuttings which were drilled with oil based (diesel) mud. The diesel is recovered from the drilling mud and then reused in the drilling process and the resulting solids are sent off site to a third party for bioremediation.

With the intent of increasing the amount of recycled wastes and decreasing the amount of natural resources consumed, TCO is focused on the development of a waste recycling segment within the RoK economy. TCO is currently sending more than 20 types of waste for recycle to nine separate processing companies within RoK.

Regarding our commitment to reducing flaring, TCO is the first company in Kazakhstan licensed to use the YOKOGAWA Exapilot software, designed to reduce gas flaring. This automated software was introduced at our KTL plant and it ensures a timely response to a sulfur unit shutdown, decreasing the likelihood and amount of acid gas flaring.

For water, TCO is employing advanced technologies at the Wastewater Treatment Facility with the use of Sequencing Batch Reactors and at the Water Recycle Facility with the use of reverse osmosis as previously discussed in the last question. These technologies support TCO's objective of reducing the amount of water used in our operations.

I have given just a few examples of our use of the latest technologies in our operations intended to recue TCO's environmental impact.

- What main objectives does your company pursue, supporting this conference as part of the exhibition? What practical benefits do you think will get experts from participating in it?

- TCO strives to be a leader in Environmental Stewardship. The EcoTech 2014 platform brings together experts from all over Kazakhstan, enabling a unique opportunity to present new technologies and concepts which could be considered for use within the gas and oil industry, and at TCO. I consider this "Development of Infrastructure for Waste Disposal in Kazakhstan" conference an ideal platform for interaction among industry professionals.

On behalf of Tengizchevroil, let me wish all participants, guests, and organizers a productive and interesting exhibition and conference!