Drill cuttings containing hydrocarbon contaminants from the Oil & Gas industry are generally considered to be special waste. They are the broken bits from boreholes mixed with water and drilling fluids. Fluids released during the drilling process comprise of water, diesel or other hydrocarbons used for lubrication.
There are various different ways to handle drill cuttings. To this day, most of the drill-cuttings waste worldwide is still put into landfills or burned in incineration plants. This is a very costly and environmentally questionable procedure. Today there are technologies in the marketplace which endeavour to treat the drill cutting muds in a more environmentally-friendly and economically feasible way. Especially in cases where expensive synthetically produced drilling fluids are used, recovery and reuse of the fluids makes a lot of sense economically.

The treatment goals are:

• to recover the valuable drilling fluids for reuse
• to achieve an optimum level of cleanliness of the treated and remaining solids

The VacuDry^® technology is the technology of choice to achieve these goals. The combination of Vacuum (with no oxygen present) and low treatment temperatures ensures the recovery of drilling fluids in new-product quality. The price of synthetic drilling fluids can be up to 4 € per litre. With an average of 15 – 20% drilling fluid per ton the recovered, fluid is worth up to 800 € per ton treated material.

The treated solids have a hydrocarbon content of less than 0,5%. This makes landfill dumping very feasible. Even reuse of the recovered substance as construction material is possible.
At the moment econ industries is building two new VacuDry^® plants in Azerbaijan to treat drilling cuttings from the Oil & Gas exploration in the Caspian Sea. This project will be up and running by the beginning of 2016.
We are looking forward to executing our exciting and environmentally friendly landmark project with our internationally renowned client, situated south of the wonderful city of Baku.