DOE funds six oil/environment R&D projects

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded research grants to six research and development projects seeking to improve U.S. petroleum industry environmental protection while cutting costs.

DOE will spend $3.5 million and sponsors $1.6 million. The project selections complete the five major petroleum-related competitions that DOE's National Petroleum Technology Office in Tulsa launched in March 1998.

The competitions are intended to identify technical advances that could be transferred to oil producers, especially independents.

Projects

In the latest round, the projects are:

The University of Texas at Austin (UT) plans a $610,000 project to test the silicate zeolite for removing contaminants from water produced during drilling and production. DOE will contribute $486,000.
UT also has an $800,000 project to collect data on soil contaminated by drilling fluids at well sites in Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. DOE will spend $642,000.
Terralog Technologies USA, Inc., Arcadia, Calif., plans a $964,000 project to cut the costs of reinjecting oil field wastes while avoiding the problems of other injection processes. DOE's share is $274,000.
Institute of Gas Technology, Des Plaines, Ill., proposed a $861,000 project to improve the "chemically accelerated biotreatment" method for cleaning soil contaminated with oil. It will test the technology on waste pits and soil contaminated by pipeline spills. DOE will contribute $688,000.
SRI International, Menlo Park, Calif., has a $400,000 venture to remove oil from soil through hydrothermal extraction. It will measure how contaminants dissolved at various water pressures and degrees determine if the addition of sodium carbonate retains higher temperatures and enhances efficiency. DOE's share is $320,000.
Basin Research Institute, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, has a $1.5 million project to develop a database on 47,000 wells for which Louisiana has little or no information. The data will be merged into a larger computerized well inventory used by state regulatory agencies. DOE will spend $1.1 million.