SPE 127196

Developing Environmentally Compliant Materials for Cementing and

Stimulation Operations
J ulio Gomez, BJ Services Company
Copyright 2010, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE International Conference on Health, Safety and Environment in Oil and Gas Exploration and Production held in Rio de J aneiro, Brazil, 1214
April 2010.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.


Abstract
Several offshore oil and gas well drilling operations involve discharging fluids to the sea as part of normal operations. This
can have a potential environmental impact on marine and aquatic ecosystems, depending on the characteristics of the
components of these discharges.

Offshore drilling operations are carried out in many regions, worldwide, and different governments have enacted
environmental regulations and requirements to control potential marine pollution. In addition, most of the companies that
operate in these environments have their own internal environmental policies. All of those requirements must be met during
offshore operations.

However, some chemicals traditionally used in the onshore operations pose risks in the marine environment. Therefore, as
more environmentally sensitive operations arise (e.g. deepwater cementing, where the tophole cement returns are circulated
to the sea), environmentally friendly alternative chemical products are being developed to replace those hazardous chemicals.
The challenge now is to develop environmentally friendly materials that do not sacrifice operational performance or
significantly impact well economics.

This paper analyzes materials developed for cementing and stimulation operations, comparing their environmental
performance with the different environmental regulations requirements and considering their operational performance with
traditional chemicals that pose more risks to marine environments.

Introduction
Efforts to control and reduce the environmental impact of offshore oil and gas have resulted in several regulations, ranging
from specific country legislation to multilateral agreements. In 1982, UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea), signed by 154 countries to-date, defined the rights and responsibilities of countries regarding the worlds oceans.
Included is the fact that each country will be responsible for legally regulating and controlling the activity in waters under its
exclusive economic zone. Thus, the implementation of these multilateral agreements has resulted in a country-by-country
legal approach, and a single agreement has resulted in several different local regulations.

We will outline the general multilateral agreements, examples of local country regulations and we will then analyze how
materials used for cementing and stimulating oil and gas wells have evolved to comply with regulations in the North Sea and
in Brazil.

IMO (International Marine Organization), which is also a United Nations agency, with 168 member states, established
MARPOL (International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships). All ships, including oil and gas well related
vessels, are covered by MARPOL. Its focus is mainly prevention pollution from the ship operation itself, accidents and tank
cleaning, but not the oil and gas well related activity. However, it is used as base for several local regulations, especially in
the absence of other agreed guidelines. Regarding industrial offshore activity, MARPOL is very general and lacks detailed
procedures, toxicity levels, classifications and is not specific for offshore oil and gas activity.
2 SPE 127196
North Sea
Countries with waters in the North-East Atlantic have agreed in OSPAR (Oslo - Paris Conference for the Protection of the
Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic) a detailed and strict regulation to control the offshore environment,
specifically applicable to oil and gas operations.
For well cementing and stimulation operations the regulation is based in the OSPAR decision HMCS (Harmonized
Mandatory Control System for the Use and Discharge of Offshore Chemicals) which requires that all offshore chemicals are
subject to pre-screening against given criteria for acceptance.
In order to comply with the pre-screening requirements, any materials used in offshore well fluids must pass a pre-screening
process (figure 1), which includes specific test protocols on component levels (and not on product level):

Maximum toxicity levels on the mandatory marine species:
1. Skeletonema costatum (algae)
2. Acartia tonsa (crustacean)
3. Scophthalmus maximus juvenile or Cyprindon variegatus (fish)
4. Corophium volutator (sediment reworker)

Additional to the above, organic substances need to meet the minimum parameters on:
Biodegradation (OECD 306)
Bioaccumulation (OECD 117)

Based on the results of the tests above, the components will either pass or fail the pre-screening criteria. If one component in
the product fails, then the whole product fails.
There is an exemption list of substances where OSPAR has deemed the substances to be non-hazardous, and therefore do not
require the testing as described above. This is the so-called PLONOR list, (Pose Little Or NO Risk), and these are mostly
natural occurring, minerals and/or inert substances.
On the other side, there is also a list with priority substances with hazardous substances, a "banned" list.
Once all test data is available, the products are ranked according to their HQ (Hazard Quotient), based on their environmental
profile, expected usage (dosage) and standardized factors for dilution/discharge.

Parallel to OSPAR, the EU (European Union) has approved new legislation covering both continental and offshore EU:
REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals). For the North Sea, this regulation is
mandatory further to the regulations that have risen from OSPAR, which means that even if a given material is cleared for
use by OSPAR regulations, it is not automatically cleared by REACH, and therefore it needs to follow the REACH protocol
to be registered and cleared.

REACH, which came into force in 2008, requires that all the substances that are part of the materials used in the EU have to
be registered and cleared for use according to testing protocols that vary depending on the type of substance, and the
utilization tonnage.

The tonnage bands for the testing and clearance process for pre registered components are:
<1 tone per year - No test required
>1 tone per year - Testing of pre-registered components required by 2018
>100 tone per year - Testing of pre-registered components required by 2013
>1000 tone per year - Testing of pre-registered components required by 2010

The testing includes not only environmental parameters, but also an assessment of risk for human beings and risk exposure.

Brazil
Brazils water environment is controlled by IBAMA (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Resources).
The legislation issued in 2000 is mainly based on MARPOL and contains a classification of the discharges to sea based on
their toxicity level. The legislation implementation is based on testing, approval and control on preparation basis,
individual components of the preparations need not be tested and approved. The tests to approve the systems or blends used
include:
1. Acute Toxicity, based on the Brazilian standard testing procedure CETESB LS250. To pass this test, the result
needs to be a LC50 higher than 30,000 ppm at 96 hr. for Mysidopsis juniae (an indigenous shrimp).
2. Chronic Toxicity, based on the Brazilian standard testing procedure CETESB LS251. To pass this test, the result
needs to be a VC(l) higher than 1,000 ppm at 24-28 hr. in embryos of Lytechinus variegatus (an indigenous type of
SPE 127196 3
urchin).
3. Biodegradation, based on the procedure OECD 306
Both materials to be discharged offshore, and materials being transported for well operations, need to pass the above
testing protocol as part of the clearance process prior to being used.


Effluents from Completion Operations
Offshore oil and gas wells drilling and completion operations can produce four types of effluents, which potentially could
pollute the sea, as follows:

1. Direct discharge to the sea:

2. Potential of leaks or accidents involving spills, when chemical products are stored in offshore vessels or platforms.

3. Tanks and vessels cleaning, surplus disposal

4. Well flow back effluents

Our analysis focuses on offshore cementing and stimulation operations, in the first and second group of effluents. For
offshore cementing operations, we will analyze top hole cement slurries, for which the first type of effluent is involved. For
stimulation operations we will analyze fracturing gels and acid blends, for which the second type of effluents will be
analyzed.


Top Hole Cementing Operations in Deep Water Wells
Deep water wells are drilled using a closed loop system. There is a riser attached to a cemented casing which provides a
connection between the casing and the drilling rig. The drilling fluids are pumped from the rig through the drill pipe, the
drilling bit and then they return to the rig through the annuli between the hole and drill pipe, the casing and drill pipe and the
riser and drill pipe. This process does not discharge any fluids to the sea. However, when the first sections (top hole) of deep
water wells are drilled, there is not any ability to circulate fluids from the hole back up to the rig, since a riser has not yet
been installed. Thus, the drilling fluids, the formation cuttings and the cement returns are circulated directly to the sea, from
the drill pipe to the hole and from the hole into the sea.

For this reason, this top hole section is usually drilled with sea water as drilling fluid, including sweeps of non-toxic
polymers. The cement slurries also need to be non-polluting and must comply with environmental regulations in order to
enable them to be circulated into the sea. At the same time, the cement sheath in the annulus needs to comply with certain
minimum technical requirements both to guarantee the ability to continue drilling the well by supporting the casing and to
isolate the sea from any formation fluids. Some of the most important of these technical requirements are: 1) a density
between the pore and fracture pressure equivalent densities, 2) to achieve a minimum compressive strength, 3) to be mixable
and pumpable and 4) to provide a suitable thickening time profile. Additionally, deep water wells may require slurries with
special properties such as gas control or low transition time.

Typical components of top hole slurries are:

Portland cement
Bentonite
Foam preventer
Dispersant
Fluid loss controller
Extender
Accelerator
Retarder

GENERAL ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS OF TOP HOLE CEMENT SLURRIES
Top hole cement slurries are environmentally assessed whether at system level or at component level, depending on the
applicable regulation. System-based evaluations are used following regulations in Brazil and other countries. In the case of
Brazilian operations, the requirements, as explained before, are: 1. Acute toxicity, 2. Chronic toxicity and 3. Biodegradation.
In the last eight years we have seen an evolution of these types of slurries both in environmental and operational
performance. Currently, top hole cementing operations are performed with slurries showing environmental features much
4 SPE 127196
better than the Brazilian regulations require: Typically more than 50,000 ppm for LC50 at 96 hours (needs to be higher than
30,000 ppm for Mysidopsis Juniae), VC(l) of more than 10,000 ppm (required to be more than 1,000 ppm in Lytechinus
Variegates) and they meet biodegradability requirements.

ENVIRONMENTAL EVALUATION OF THE COMPONENTS
To meet the environmental cement slurry requirements, each component needs also to be analyzed. The regulations involve
assessments, registration and authorizations to use materials on a substance basis (single component of each system) and to
record the amount of each component used.

The OSPAR, regulated that each substance needs to be environmentally assessed using a protocol called Chemical Hazards
Assessment and Risk Management (CHARM). If each single component (substance) is in the PLONOR (Pose Little or No
Risk) list of materials, it is cleared for offshore use. Substances that are not on this list need to pass the OSPAR pre-
screening process to be cleared for use
3
. A diagram is this pre-screening process is shown in figure 1.

Most of the components of cement slurries used for top hole sections are accepted by the current regulations. However,
several of them were considered pollutants before 2004, when the OSPAR was started to be applied by the North Sea
countries. New environmentally compliant materials were developed to replace those toxic substances. The following is the
analysis per component of the typical top hole cement slurries, with focus on the components replaced due to environmental
reasons, during the last five years:

Portland cement: This is the base of the cement slurry. The most widely used cement in offshore environments is API class
G cement, which is in the list of PLONOR materials, thus environmental assessment and pre-screening process are not
required. Other cements, including API Portland cement other than class G are not in the list of Plonor materials and would
need to pass this pre-screening, registration and clearing process
1
.

Foam preventer: This additive is used to prevent operational problems that happen when the cement foams due to the
turbulence created in the cement mixing devices. Before the 2000s, non biodegradable polypropylene glycol and silicon-
based defoamers were widely used. Modern defoamers have evolved to vegetable oil type raw materials that pass the
environmental requirements
1
. A foam preventer made with components solely from the PLONOR list has already been
developed and current efforts are focused in achieving operational performance comparable to conventional defoamers.

Dispersant: High viscosity can make cement slurries very difficult or impossible to be mixed and pumped. Dispersants are
added to reduce the viscosity when this happens. Commonly used materials are some types of sulfates and sulfonates
classified as toxic materials. However, since 2005 a dispersant made with components from the PLONOR list was
developed. It shows similar or better performance than the previous dispersants.

Fluid loss controller: These products are used to prevent the cement slurry from losing water to the formation, and thus
dehydrating. Offshore additives are preferred to be liquid in order to be fed on the fly into the slurries and to avoid disposal of
premixed residual volumes. Fluid loss controllers are powder polymers, in some cases non polluting PLONOR materials.
However, in order to be used in a liquid form, these polymers need to be slurried in a non-aqueous phase. The most common
base fluids are diesel or heavy naphthas, both heavily contaminant. Before 2004, liquid fluid loss controllers available were
toxic. In 2006, a liquid fluid loss controller made using components from the PLONOR list was developed and it is currently
in use.

Extenders: Extenders are additives used in order to reduce the density of a cement slurry and while maintaining minimum
mechanical properties of the cement sheath. Glass or ceramic hollow microspheres are extenders commonly used for
premium low weight cements. For other less-critical applications, sodium silicate or bentonite extenders are used for slurries
which are not required to show high performance mechanical properties. All of these are PLONOR materials.

Accelerator / retarder: For top hole slurries, calcium chloride accelerator and lignosulfonate based retarders, which are
PLONOR components, are commonly used.

SPE 127196 5
Table 2. Environmental evolution of the components of a typical cement slurry
1
, from fig. 7 of SPE 106644.




Stimulation Operations in Offshore Wells
As explained above, stimulation fluids are not intended to be effluents to be dumped or circulated with discharge to the sea.
They are injected into the formations that bear oil or gas to improve the production conditions. Then, they flow back along
with the produced fluids to the production facilities or to special equipment for proper disposal. However, potential of leaks
or spills exists and the environmental impact of these possible events would be high considering that fracturing gels and acid
blends are used in large volumes to stimulate offshore wells. They are blended and stored in the tanks of stimulation vessels
or in the completion platforms before the stimulation operations. For this reason, they are also subject to the environmental
regulations and it is of worth analyzing the pollution potential and the regulation compliance of them.

We are analyzing the two most common stimulation fluids, fracturing gels and acidizing blends:

FRACTURING GELS: Hydraulic fracturing operations are very common treatments performed to increase oil or gas
production. Fracturing pumps inject liquids into the reservoir at high pressure and rate to create a crack in the rock. The crack
is an improved path for the reservoir fluids to be produced. In order to prevent it from closing, it is propped with a solid
material. The fracturing fluids are used to create this crack and to transport the proppant inside it. In offshore wells, the
most used fracturing fluids are high viscosity liquids usually blended with sea water. The gels are usually blended on the fly,
as they are pumped down hole, by the addition of liquid chemical products to the sea water, as follows:

Typical Fracturing Gel Components and Environmental Considerations:

Gellant: They are mostly powdered guar, guar derivatives or similar polymers, which are dispersed in a hydrocarbon liquid
in order make a slurry (liquid polymer concentrate). Since guar based polymers are not pollutants (and in fact most of them
are in the PLONOR list), the environmental concern is the hydrocarbon and stabilizing additives used to prepare the slurry.
The most commonly used carrier fluid was diesel due to low cost and availability, however it is not biodegradable.
Currently, the industry has moved to the utilization of so-called green oils, which despite being hydrocarbons, show lower
environmental impact than diesel. Since 2007, the most used slurried gellants are products environmentally accepted by most
of the regulatory bodies, including the OSPAR convention, Brazilian and US regulations.

Crosslinkers: These are additives used to increase the viscosity of a hydrated polymer, to generate a viscous gel. Offshore
operations normally use borate, zirconium and aluminum based crosslinkers. Some of the borate based crosslinkers pass
successfully the OSPAR screening process and are registered to be able to be used. Metallic based crosslinkers are used for
higher temperature or other special applications. Only a few of them are environmentally acceptable and some applications
do not have yet a suitable crosslinker able to meet the environmental regulations.

Surfactants: These are additives used to improve the fracturing fluid recovery by preventing emulsions, reducing surface
tension and promoting water wettability. Despite of the low concentrations used, (0.1 to 0.5% by volume), the chemical
products used before 2004 were toxic. Low toxicity surfactants have been developed since then, and they are able to pass
OSPAR environmental screening.

Breakers: These are additives used to degrade the gel viscosity after the treatment and thus allow the gel and formation fluids
to be produced. The most common types are oxidative materials (such as peroxides, persulfates and perborates) and
enzymes. From an environmental standpoint, the enzymes are less polluting than the oxidative materials and they are in the
green PLONOR list of materials. Oxidative breakers in general, despite the fact that they are not in the PLONOR list, mostly
pass the OSPAR screening process. They are non-organic low toxicity and environmentally acceptable chemicals.

Clay controllers and pH controllers: These are typically salts or buffer solutions added to the fracturing gels to prevent clay
6 SPE 127196
swelling or to adjust the system pH to a point for optimum viscosity. As inorganic materials, such as KCl, NH
4
Cl, NaOH and
similar salts, most of them are PLONOR substances and they have low toxicity. In fact, several of them are part of the sea
water.

In general, after the developments made regarding the polymer based fracturing gels, the fluids used today in offshore
environments show low toxicity when they are analyzed as a system. High performance fracturing fluids and gels for very
high temperature applications still include toxic chemicals, but since these additives are typically used at low concentrations
(typically less than 1%) in the gel system, they are environmentally acceptable in a system-based analysis (e.g., for Brazilian
or US regulations).

Two typical gels examples are shown bellow:

Table 3. Example of Fracturing gels: System environmental analysis as per Brazilian regulation:

Green Borate Guar Gel HTHP Frac Gel Brazilian Regulation
LC50 (96h) - MJ * (ppm) 40,291 203,063 >30,000 ppm
CV (l) - LV** (ppm) 31,225 176,777 >1,000 ppm
Biodegradable Yes Yes Yes
* Lethal Concentration for 50% of population at 96 hour for Mysidopsis Juniae
** Chronic Toxicity Value Test 24-28 hr. for Lytechinus Variegatus embryo

However, in a component-based analysis, there are still some materials used in the high performance gels, despite the low
concentrations required, that are not considered acceptable under a the component analysis. The challenge, thus, is to
develop substitute materials able to show comparable performance to the ones currently used, to be able to pass the
environmental screening process. On the other hand, as the offshore oil industry expands its frontiers to deeper and hotter
reservoirs, and as improved performance materials are developed, the low toxicity gels could not perform under the new
conditions, where the old toxic systems do. Therefore, current developments are focused on addressing the requirements of
these new frontiers of oil and gas industry with non polluting fracturing fluids.


ACIDIZING BLENDS: Acid stimulation is also a widely used technique to increase oil and gas well production. Acidizing
treatments are based in the fact that certain acids are able to chemically dissolve either the formation rock components, the
solids plugging the hydrocarbons flow in the porous media or the scales plugging the well tubulars. The most common acid
types used for well stimulation are hydrochloric (HCl), hydrofluoric (HF), acetic (HOAc) and formic (HCOOH). Several
additives are added to the base acids to prepare the stimulation acid blends in order to improve the treatment results and to
avoid undesirable reactions, such as tubular corrosion or iron reprecipitation in the porous media.

Typical Components of Acid Blends and Environmental Considerations

Base Acid: Depending on the formation type and reservoir / well properties, one or several of the above mentioned acids are
blended with water to adjust the strength for optimum stimulation performance. Acid concentration typically ranges from 5
to 20 % HCl, from 0.5 to 3%, from 10 to 13% HOAc and from 9 to 10% HCOOH
2
. Acids are chemical compounds that,
when diluted in water, generate a solution with hydrogen ion activity. Since this activity depends on the acid concentration,
in the event of a spill or a leak, the environmental potential pollution in offshore operations will exist only for a limited
period of time (while the acid is diluted by the sea water to a non dangerous concentration). In fact, the OSPAR convention
classifies the acids listed above as PLONOR materials. Typical acid solutions are low toxicity systems, with LC50
concentrations within the range to be considered as non-toxic for all the offshore regulations.

Corrosion inhibitors: Unfortunately acids cause corrosion in all well tubular metallurgies. Since oil and gas wells are assets
that need to be productive for several years, corrosion needs to be controlled to guarantee long term production. For this
reason, stimulation acid blends are treated with additives that inhibit corrosion. As bottom hole temperatures are higher,
stronger corrosion inhibitors and higher loadings are required to protect the tubular. Known materials that prevent corrosion
from acid are very poisonous and strongly polluting. Table 3 shows an example of the environmental evolution where some
progress has been made in reducing the components toxicity in the corrosion inhibitors used offshore. However, acceptable
environmental alternatives to control corrosion in typical acidizing operations have not been found. This is one of the main
environmental challenges of stimulation fluids at this time.



SPE 127196 7
The following table shows an example of acid corrosion inhibitors toxicity progress:

Table 3: Acid corrosion inhibitors toxicity examples. Substance-based (pure component) testing as per OSPAR convention:

Values for the worst
component
Acid Inhibitor 2
(before 2008)
Acid Inhibitor 3 Regulation**
LC50*, ppm 0.3 1.4 >10
Biodegradation (28 days), % 39 56 >60
Bioaccumulation, Log Pow 3.82 3.02 <3
* Lethal Concentration for 50% of population. Test for 4 different organisms, the table shows the worst case.
** Passing the OSPAR screening requires to pass two out of these three criteria for this type of materials.

Iron controllers: Acids dissolve iron and rust from the well tubulars. When acid laden with this dissolved iron reacts with the
formation components and spends, it would eventually precipitate this iron in the porous media, plugging the oil or gas flow.
For this reason, additives that keep this iron in solution are used. There are several materials able to do this job. The most
used is the citric acid, which is found in fruits and it does not pollute the sea environment. Among other materials used for
this purpose, some are low toxicity materials, cleared for offshore use, and others are toxic and not environmentally
acceptable. For most of the current acidizing applications, the environmentally acceptable materials show suitable technical
performance.

Gellants: It is a successful and common practice to stimulate certain types of formations with viscosified HCl acid. There are
two types of materials able to increase the viscosity this acid, 1. Polymers like acrylamides or hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC);
or 2. Viscoelastic surfactants. The first type, the polymers, are low contaminant products, most of them present in the list of
PLONOR materials or classified as low toxicity materials. However, for the second type, the surfactants used to viscosify
acids are do not pass the OSPAR pre-screening process. In a product by product analysis, such materials could be considered
toxic, while in a system-based analysis, like in Brazilian regulations, some systems could be acceptable, depending on the
concentration of the gallant used in the system.

Acid blends can also include additives from a broader range of materials, depending on each specific application, such as the
surfactants, which were analyzed in the fracturing gels section.

In general, typical acid systems are low polluting systems, except for the fact that they include corrosion inhibitors. The
main challenge currently is to find low toxicity materials able to control tubular corrosion from acids. In fact, as shown in
Table 3, North Sea regulations classify the currently-used corrosion inhibitors as not passing the OSPAR pre-screening
process since they are very toxic. The use of corrosion inhibitors has been limited by these regulations on a case by case
basis analysis and due to the fact that there is not a viable alternative to date. There is a commitment to develop
environmentally acceptable corrosion inhibitors and this is the main challenge to meet environmentally acceptable
stimulation fluids today.

Conclusions
1. The environmental regulations covering offshore oil and gas industry have important variations from country-to-country
and from one area to another. Some standardization efforts have been made, but this is still an area for improvement. The
lack of worldwide standards results in both higher costs to develop environmentally safe materials and in a non-efficient
sea pollution reduction and control.
2. There are important differences in the environmental regulations for offshore operations. One major difference is that
the regulations in some areas, such as the North Sea, consider a substance- or component-based analysis, while other
areas, such as Brazilian regulations, consider a system-based analysis. This leads to differences in each area in terms of
what is environmentally acceptable or not.
3. The cementing and the stimulation fluids have evolved from an environmental point of view, over the past five years.
Most of the materials used today are environmentally friendly and meet the expectations of both North Sea and Brazilian
environmental regulations.
4. It is currently possible to perform oil and gas wells stimulation operations with low pollution, low toxicity and
environmentally compliant materials.
5. One important exception to the above, and thus a challenge that is still outstanding, is to develop environmentally
acceptable corrosion inhibitor for acid stimulation, something which is not currently available.
6. As offshore wells reach into deeper and hotter environments, and new high technology performance materials are
developed, the oil industry faces new challenges to develop materials able to perform both technically and in an
environmentally safe manner, to address these extreme conditions.
8 SPE 127196
Nomenclature

ft x 3.048* E 01 =m
F(F-32)/1.8 =C
in. x 2.54* E +00 =cm
psi x 6.894 757 E +00 =kPa
gal x 3.785 412 E 03 =m
3
mile x 1.069 E +00 =km
MW x 2.39085 E-5=cal/sec


Acknowledgements
The authors thank BJ Services Company for permission to present this paper.

References
1. Haheim, S., Scoggins, C., Lebo, S. and Pedersen, R. Meeting the Environmental Challenges in Cementing., SPE
106644, SPE E&P Environmental and Safety Conference, Galveston, Tx, March 2007
2. Kalfayan, L. Production Enhancement with Acid Stimulation. BJ Edition, Pennwell, 2008.
3. OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment in the North East Atlantic, Annex 16.
Copenhagen, J une 2000.
4. Garland, E., Prunier, A., Aqueous Discharges From E&P Installations: Current Technical and Regulatory
Challenges From an Operators Point of View. SPE 102900, ATCE, San Antonio, Tx., September 2006
5. Gilbert, Y., Pessala, P., Vaahtera, A., Raivio, T., Formate Fluids and Environmental Regulations: A Global View of
Benefits and Challenges. SPE 110891. ATCE Anahaim, Ca. November, 2007













SPE 127196 9
















































Figure 1. The Harmonised Pre-Screening Scheme (shaded) as Part of the Whole Harmonised
Mandatory Control System for Offshore Substances set out in the applicable OSPAR Decision
3

Is substance on Annex 2 of the OSPAR
Strategy with regard to Hazardous
Substances or considered by authorities to
be of equivalent concern for the marine
environment ?
Is substance on the
PLONOR list?
F
u
l
l

H
O
C
N
F

n
e
e
d
e
d

Is the substance inorganic?
Is biodegradation of
substance <20% in 28 days
?
Is LC
50
or EC
50
<
1mg/l ?
I
s

s
u
b
s
t
i
t
u
t
e

a
v
a
i
l
a
b
l
e
?

A. Permission
D. Refusal of Permission
Ranking
B. Substitution
(CHARM may be used as a
decision supporting tool +
expert judgement)
C. Temporary Permission
or
D. Refusal of Permission
(CHARM may be used as a
decision supporting tool +
expert judgement)
Expert judgement positive? *
Start
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
no
no
no
no
no
no
no
Develop new product
no
Does the substance meet 2 of the 3 following criteria:
biodegradation
<70 % in 28 days (OECD 301A, 301E) or
<60 % in 28 days (OECD 301B, 301C, 301F, 306)
bioaccumulation log Pow 3 or is BCF>100 and
considering molecular weight
toxicity LC
50
or EC
50
<10mg/l **
Management decision based on the outcome
of the ranking