Miles Tindal, from Millennium EMS Solutions Ltd., discusses his development of an analytic method to monitor groundwater for metals around oilfield activity.
He considered the metals in the groundwater that should be monitored at standard upstream oil and gas wellsites, and evaluated the background concentrations for context, anaerobic biodegradation, drilling mud components, and formation waters.
He discussed the process of analyzing the metals within 314 mud components with the help of Marquis Alliance and compared the highest metal concentration with Tier 1 soil remediation guidelines. He determined that, of the 14 different metals, seven were considered to be potentially present in drill mud at significant concentrations, but he did not find any significant connection between metals and chloride (which is associated with treated water brought onto the site).
This presentation was a part of the Petroleum Technology Alliance of Canada Soil and Groundwater Forum in March of 2014.
