Tullow collaborates with Kenya's National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) to ensure they are kept abreast of our activities and sanction any changes to our programme that have potential environmental impacts.
We collaborate with Kenya’s National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) to ensure they are kept abreast of our activities and sanction any changes to our programme that have potential environmental impacts. In 2013 we worked with them to identify the best drilling muds to use. To date we have been using water-based muds (WBMs), but instead we wanted to propose a switch to synthetic based muds (SBM), which have several environmental and operational advantages over WBMs. SBMs have been proven to reduce cuttings volumes, waste, emissions, water and energy usage. Operational advantages include increased wellbore stability, better lubricity, high temperature stability and improved rate of drilling penetration.
Following our best practical environmental option (BPEO) study for the disposal of SBM drill cuttings, our proposal to change drilling muds was approved by NEMA, and Tullow started implementing this approach in early 2014.