Gas rigs take environment award
15 Jan 2000
A project to decommission and dismantle redundant gas drilling platforms has won the Engineering Council's 1997 environment award for engineers. The platforms, which were owned and operated by Conoco, were almost entirely recycled.
The winning team of Stefan Croft-Bednarski, Simon Harbond and Raymond Davies were presented with the problem of what to do with the four platforms, which operated on the Viking field in the North Sea. Under Inetrnational Maritime Organisation guildelines, the platforms had to be removed completely, and the best practicable environmental option assessment indicated that the best approach for this would be to bring the platforms ashore and take them apart.
The rigs were brought to the Swan Hunter shipyard on Tyneside for dismantling. There was 10 000 tonnes of material to handle, much of which would traditionally gone to landfill sites. However, according to the judging panel, the team exercised 'great creativity' in finding recycling routes for the material. For example, the decking was used to construct a new quayside at the shipyard; lighting was also used around the area; and pumps and compressors were broken down, with the parts reconditioned and used as spares for other rigs. In all, over 99 per cent of the material was reused or recycled; Conoco donated material for reuse to local groups free of charge.
A runners-up award went to Firbowatt, a company set up to design and build power stations that run off chicken droppings. The company currently operates two stations, in Suffolk and Lincolnshire, each of which burn 150 000 tonnes of poultry litter (droppings and straw) per year to produce 13MW of power. Chartered engineer Paul Apps explained that the waste is normally a nuisance, reeking of ammonia and rotting to produce carbon dioxide and methane; it can't all be used as fertiliser. A new station, in Thetford, Norfolk, is currently under construction; once on-stream, it will generate 38.5MW per year, consuming waste from turkeys and horses as well as chickens.
