BASELINE ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES FOR THE OIL AND GAS PROSPECTING AND EXPLORATION

3rd International Scientific Conference - SGEM2003, www.sgem.org, SGEM2003 Conference Proceedings/ ISBN: 954-918181-2, June 9-13, 2003, 261- 270pp

ABSTRACT
/Full article available only in Bulgarian language/

The Bulgarian environmental legislation does not formulate special
requirements for the performing of baseline environmental studies and the
environmental impact assessment of the prospecting and exploration activities for
oil and gas. The oil and gas exploration and prospecting activities are usually
performed on areas of significant size, and are connected with specific impact on
the environment, therefore it is accepted in the good international oil practice to
perform obligatory baseline environmental studies prior the beginning of the
planned activities. Their aim is to obtain extensive information on the state of the
environment before the start of the prospecting and exploration activities for oil
and gas within a certain territory, and especially when such activities have been
performed in the past by other oil companies. In this aspect, the baseline
environmental studies do not contradict the Bulgarian environmental legislation
and the foreign companies entering Bulgaria apply their experience and traditional
practices, and require that such studies are performed by local expert teams.
This report presents the acquired experience of the expert team of
GeoMarine Centre Ltd in conducting baseline environmental studies within a
significant territory, where oil and gas exploration and prospecting activities have
been performed in the past. When conducting these studies, the recommendations
and methodological approaches adopted by the good international practice were
used, as well as the standard normative requirements of the Bulgarian
environmental legislation.
The studies involved the following main stages:
· Document studies of available archive data on the conducted in the past
prospecting and exploration activities for oil and gas within the borders of
the studied territory, during which data was extracted from the various
available information sources on the methodology, technology and spatial
distribution of the conducted in the past geophysical (seismic) and
geological (drilling) works and their impact on the environment;
· Assessment of the state of the separate environmental components as per
data from all available sources of information;
· Conducting field studies in pre-identified (on basis of the document studies)
sectors, during which observations were made of the state of the
environment per its components, as well as of the environmentally sensitive
areas in the borders of the studied territory;
· Studying of the sectors with suspected evidence of old environmental
damages from prospecting and exploration activities for oil and gas
performed in the past;
· Sampling and laboratory testing of environmental components which
experienced the impact of the above activities.
The report gives an assessment of the used methodology, as well as of the
established specific impact on the different environmental components due to
conducted in the past prospecting and exploration activities for oil and gas, and the
environmental damage they caused.