Brief History of NORM in the Oil/Gas Industry Dr.Brian Heaton

Is it a new phenomenon? The oil and gas industry has been working for over 100 years is this a new problem or has it been around for some time ?

Is it a new phenomenon? Radioactive scales have been recognised for many years as being a problem when carrying out well logging operations. Definitive paper by Campbell in 1951: Radioactivity Well Logging Anomalies, Petroleum Engineer, Volume23 N0.6 pp7-12

Is it a new phenomenon? Walter Fertl, the General manager for Dresser Petroleum Engineering Services in Nov 1983 in a paper in World Oil talks about the occurrence of “radioactive crusts” providing valuable supplementary information on: Dynamic reservoir field conditions behind perforated casing, recognition of faulty cementing jobs, water break through profiles and monitoring of oil/water contacts

Is it a new phenomenon? Gesell wrote a paper for Health Physics in 1975 (29 pp ) entitled Occupational Exposure due to Rn-22 in Natural Gas and Natural Products. In this paper he identified external radiation fields and internal alpha particle exposure to the respiratory tract and other organs due to Pb-210 and Po-210 as a problem.

Perception of Risk from Natural Sources International Commission on Radiological Protection recognised that Radon and Cosmic Radiation and some Thorium ores may be a problem in “ICRP 26” but rather played the significance down. ICRP 26 does not refer to NORM. Many countries did not have any legislation with regard to NORM Health Physics professionals were not in general very interested in the problems of NORM (except Radon)

Perception of Risk from Natural Sources The general public often do not perceive natural radiation as being as dangerous as man made radiation.

What changed? In 1981 a log on a production well on the Occidental platform Piper Alpha went off scale. Despite all the earlier papers this appeared to be a surprise and people actually thought that it could be from Scandium 85 that was used to monitor cement when it was being pumped.

What changed? Samples sent for counting showed that radionuclides from both the Uranium-238 and Thorium-232 decay series were present. The activity levels were high enough to bring the material into the requirements of the UK environmental legislation.

Radioactive Substances Act 1993 ElementSolidLiquidGas Becquerels per gram Radium x10 -5 Lead x10 -4 Polonium x10 -4 Actinium x10 -6 Radon 3.70x10 -2

Tubular from Piper Alpha

Implications under UK Legislation Discharges offshore and onshore cleaning had to take place under licence from the Environment Agency Occupational Exposure legislation had to be complied with.

What happened Internationally? Very little. It was thought that the method of oil extraction in the North Sea where large volumes of seawater were being pumped into the formation to maintain pressure made the situation there different from elsewhere. In 1985 Chevron in the USA looked at tubulars from their fields and identified that a problem existed.

What happened Internationally? In 1984 the E and P Forum based in the UK set up a committee to look at the problem. We sent out a questionnaire to operators all over the world asking if they had taken any measurements and what results they had.

Situation Now In many countries progress is slow because of lack of infrastructure to deal with radioactive waste. Some countries still do not want to accept they have a problem. For the operators it is not just a legislative issue but also a reputational one. In some parts of the world there is also a substantial litigation problem.

Given this history I hope that coming out of the presentations and discussions we will get some ideas on: Presenting the problem to management in a way to get their support through a better understanding of the problem. Finding solutions to some of our problems. Identifying a common approach to some of these problems for the region.