No. 4, 2009

The outlook for using sorbents to protect Russia’s environment

The use and production of sorbents in Russia is rising slowly but surely. They are used in both industry and medicine. Sorbents are used especially often in the oil and gas industry to clean up spills of petroleum products. New types of sorbent materials are appearing on the market, and the ways in which they can be used to counteract environmental disasters associated with hydrocarbons are expanding.

When "black gold" spills

In the late 20th century, the matter of cleaning up environmental disasters associated with oil spills became more relevant than ever before around the world, since the volume of oil production and transport reached unprecedented levels - and, correspondingly, the volume of leakage and spills grew manifold, along with the damage they do to the environment.

In 1978, the tanker Amoco Cadiz ran aground not far from the coast of Brittany, in France. Due to stormy weather, it was impossible to conduct rescue operations. The tanker's hull split open, and more than 230,000 tons of oil spilled into the sea. The accident was at that time the worst ecological disaster in Europe's history. It is estimated that 20,000 birds died. More than 7,000 people were involved in rescue operations.

In 1979, the worst disaster in history took place on the Mexican oil rig Ixtoc I. As a result, up to 460,000 tons of crude oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico. It took almost a year to deal completely with the consequences of the accident. The largest oil spill in history, caused by the collision of two tankers, also occurred in 1979. The Atlantic Empress and the Aegean Captain collided in the Caribbean Sea; as a result of the accident, almost 290,000 tons of oil spilled into the sea. In 1983, the tanker Castillo de Bellver, caught fire approximately 100 km out from Capetown, South Africa, and, as a consequence of the blaze, literally broke in two. More than 250,000 tons of oil spilled into the Indian Ocean. Fortunately, the current carried the oil slick out to sea and the South African coast was not damaged.

An accident that led to massive pollution took place at the Vozey-Head Installation oil pipeline, in the Russian Federation's  Republic of Komi, in 1994. According to various data, around 120 hectares of land were covered with anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 tons of oil due to the accident. A considerable amount of oil-bearing liquid drained into the rivers Kolva and Usa, categorized as high-quality fishing grounds. These events subsequently became known world wide as "The Accident of 1994" and were placed on the Guinness Book of Records' list of great ecological disasters. 

These and other, minor accidents have shown that, along with perfecting techniques for ensuring environmental protection in the production and transporting of oil, new and more effective methods must be devised for cleaning up oil spills. Russian scientists and their foreign colleagues are of the same mind, and are actively working to develop new ways and means for cleansing petroleum products from polluted waters and soils.

In particular, techniques based on various sorbent materials are now widely used in Russia. The number and quality of sorbents is growing, and new ways of using them are also being devised. In order to understand what the picture is at present on the market for Russian petroleum sorbents, we must first determine the current demand for sorbents.

A real threat to the natural environment

According to data from the RF Ministry for Civil Defense, Emergency Situations, and Eliminating the Consequences of Natural Disasters, more than 20,000 accidents accompanied by substantial (no fewer than 200 tons) oil spills take place in Russia every year. That is, no fewer than 4 million tons of oil are spilled in an average year. In the Ministry's opinion, the accidents are caused by the reduced reliability of equipment, the loosening of controls over the operating condition of systems of oil production and transport, and an inability to maintain production discipline at the required level.

According to testimony from ecologists working in the oil industry, the greatest losses of oil in Russia occur during its transportation. Around 40,000 accidents occur annually on oil field, refinery, and long-distance pipelines; around 40 of these are classified as major accidents. According to the statistical data on spills on operating oil pipelines, approximately 18% of all leakage occurs during accidents, with considerable harm done to the environment. The average annual damage from major leaks on long-distance pipelines includes the petroleum contamination of 4 hectares of prime agricultural land and 350 m³ of industrial waters. The number of leaks causing substantial damage is estimated at 7,200 annually, with 2.15 million tons of petroleum products polluting 28,800 hectares of land. Spillage of up to 50 tons is considered minor, but around 1.64 million tons of oil is lost this way each year. A total of approximately 3.79 million tons of oil are therefore lost in transport annually.

Experts from the Infomain Co., which was hired to analyze the market for Russian sorbents, believe that the yearly volume of oil pollution on the territory of Russia is 10-12 million tons. When we stop and consider that around 60% of the spilled oil is not recovered (the ground is left to cleanse itself, while sunlight breaks down the hydrocarbon compounds at the site of the accident), 20% is recovered either by hand or with the help of machines, and the average absorption capability of sorbents is 20-30 kilograms of oil per 1 kilogram of sorbent material, the average annual size of Russia's market for liquid hydrocarbon sorbents is approximately 110,000-130,000 tons.

An important link in Russia's ecology

The market for petroleum sorbents is quite new, and it still cannot meet the needs of Russia's oil industry. According to expert data, the volume of petroleum sorbent production in Russia in 2007 was 4,800-5,100 tons, while the available capacity is capable of producing 24,000-30,000 tons annually. For a number of objective reasons, 2008 saw a definite decline in the volume of sorbent production. Production is structured is such a way that hydrocarbon sorbents (65%-70% of the entire production) and mineral sorbents (16%-21%) dominate.

The production of biosorbents and sorbents based on peat, sapropel, and plant matter is the segment of the petroleum sorbent market now growing the most rapidly. They account for 4%-8% of the overall market. Their main advantage is their ability to absorb almost completely all petroleum products right at the site of an accident.  Ecolan, a unique biosorbent produced by the Russian company ECO-Life on the basis of scientific discoveries by Anatoly Krezub - an academician at the Russian Engineering Academy, a corresponding member of the International Engineering Academy, and a decorated oil industry worker - is a shining example of this.

Sorbents based on peat, sapropel, and plant matter have a wide range of applications. They are used to localize spills of oil-bearing liquids, and to recover them from soils and from the surfaces of bodies of water. They are also used to recover and recycle used oil; industrial wastes; oil-polluted soils, sand, and silts; and petroleum product wastes. In particular, the sorbent SibSorbent-1, based on sapropel and produced by the Siberian Organics Co., was used with great success in cleaning up after an accident on the Omsk-Moskalenki pipeline in the spring of 2000.

Synthetic organic sorbents (especially porous ones) are beginning to find ever broader application, since they are widely available and are frequently industrial waste products. A distinguishing characteristic of synthetic polymer materials is that they offer the opportunity to vary the structure of their porosity over a rather wide range while retaining the same chemical form. They can therefore have sorption capacities ranging from 7 to 40 kilograms of oil for each kilogram of sorbent, depending on their basic components.  The main products available on the Russian synthetic sorbent market are the polypropylene-based Multi-S preparations, manufactured by JSC Tibet Bureau for Ecological Affairs, and Ecosorb, produced by LLC EcoserviceNeftegaz.

Sorbents are also widely used as part of environmental protection systems. In October 2008, for example, a ceremony was held at the LUKOIL-Permnefteorgsintez oil refinery to mark the opening of newly rebuilt and upgraded environmental protection facilities that included mechanical and biochemical cleansing plants, mechanical and sorption filters, ultraviolet treatment plants, and an excess active sludge evaporation plant.  The use of filters containing charcoal sorbents keeps more than 40 tons of petroleum products from entering the area's surface waters annually. The new techniques for cleansing waste waters also allows industry to cut its consumption of river water by 10%.

On the whole, 6-7.5 tons of petroleum sorbents, both imported and domestically-produced, are used in Russia every year. This is, however, just the portion of petroleum sorbents that are bought and sold. The actual volume of consumption of sorption materials in Russia's hydrocarbon industry is therefore considerably greater, since some large oil companies manufacture their own sorption materials and use them for their own needs.

At present, considering the increased attention now being given to environmental protection by the oil and gas community at large, we may forecast that the use of petroleum sorbents will rise everywhere, and especially in such a major oil-producing country as Russia.