The Urau oil field Development Project during its production stage will discharge a significant amount of chemicals into the ocean, according to its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The EIA was done by Acorn International stated that, “Based on the estimated discharge rates, cooling water, produced water, slop discharge overboard, and brines from the sulphate removal, ultrafiltration, and wash water processing system are the operational discharges that are significant enough to require assessment, and thus these were the focus of modelling to assess the nature and extent of potential marine water quality impacts.” It was noted that a 20 percent contingency factor was added to most of these discharge rates for the modelling to provide conservatism for the assessment.
“Additionally, although the discharge of hydrotest water and commissioning fluids will occur over only a short time period during the SURF installation and commissioning stage, they were also included in the offshore discharge modelling as a conservative approach to assessing potential impacts,” added the EIA. Potential impacts from the other effluent discharges listed in the EIA were considered to be negligible. It was estimated that 2,264,332 barrels of cooling water would be discharged per day, 300,000 BPD produced water, 315,000 BPD of Sulphate Removal, Ultrafiltration and Wash Water Processing Brines, 1,800 BPD of FPSO Blige among other chemicals. The consultants noted that effluent characteristics and volumes/rates are based on the preliminary project design information available at the time of the EIA.
“While the expected volume of off-specification oil will be negligible, if it rains significantly, the expected discharge volume for this stream would increase,” the EIA added. The EIA can be downloaded from the EPA’s website. The public has 60 days to make written submissions to Environmental Protection Agency regarding the contents of the EIA. Submissions can be emailed to the Executive Director, Khemraj Parsram, or can be dropped off at the Agency which is located at Ganges Street Sophia.
