OREANDA-NEWS. June 08, 2010. TNK-BP has announced the completion of a comprehensive inventory in the framework of the program aimed at remediating areas that were contaminated by the previous owners of license blocks and inherited by TNK-BP, reported the press-centre of TNK-BP.

In the course of 2008 and 2009 all three phases of the inventory were completed in all the company’s license blocks within the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District (KhMAO), which is TNK-BP’s main oil production region in West Siberia:

remote sensing (satellite imagery) with further interpretation of the data to identify oil—contaminated areas;

field inspections with soil testing;

desk top processing of data and analysis of results.

The inventory has helped the company understand the timeframe for completion of the remediation program, which was begun in 2004. The data show that the remaining area of contaminated land is less than the company had predicted and matches similar information from the KhMAO government.

“Right from the start TNK-BP undertook to remediate the oil—contaminated and disturbed lands it had inherited. These obligations are not just of a technological, technical or commercial matter for us – they are a mark of responsibility towards the people living in the regions where we carry out our operations and towards society as a whole, and a vital measure for improving environmental safety in the regions where we have a presence”, stated Gleb Lyuksemburg, Vice President for Health, Safety and Environment, TNK-BP.

The company is continuing its research in the field of land remediation technologies, waste processing and decontamination. The findings of this work have shown that there is scope for further optimization of the techniques being used and will be taken on board during 2010.

Notes to editors:
Because of TNK-BP’s tough stance on quality and effectiveness of environmental protection work and the market’s inability to satisfy the company’s needs in terms of scale and quality of operations, a review of the land remediation program was carried out in 2008. The following underlying principles were adopted: effectiveness of operations; use of natural mechanisms of self-regeneration; balanced use of the capabilities of the services market. The company has dropped its overly-ambitious annual remediation plans in favor of a combined approach that involves identifying self-regenerated lands each year and balanced use of contractors and in-house resources to hand over around 300 hectares of remediated land to the state commission every year.

When TNK-BP was created the total area of oil-contaminated land inherited by the company amounted to over 5,000 hectares. Most of that was in West Siberia, of which around 80% was at the Samotlor field. Samotlor has been in production for over 40 years, but in its early stages was developed without complying with today’s environmental standards. Production peaked in the early 1980s, but the environmental repercussions are still being felt today. The company has set up a special fund for the remediation program, the size of which – in excess of USD200 million — is reviewed and adjusted each year in the light of the program’s progress, inventory results, land monitoring, and new knowledge and techniques in the field of remediation.

To date, the program has fully remediated and handed over more than 2,500 hectares of oil-contaminated land to the state commissions.