KAZAKHSTAN UPSTREAM OIL AND GAS technology and R&d ...

5.3 Environmental impact
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Solutions commentary
The goal is to put in place technology
systems than provide complete, rapid
assessment of the environmental situation and
enable full remediation of any past or future
contamination of the Caspian ecosystem.
It is expected that membrane technologies
will be a critical component in the technology
staircase for separating water and (viscous)
oil, enabling the full remediation of the
Caspian to be achieved; current and future
global capabilities should be trialed and
adopted with high priority. In parallel the
location and sealing (potentially with new
cements) of old abandoned wells needs to
be rapidly pursued, thereby stopping further
legacy contamination. In addition all aspects
of current and future operations need to
be addressed to stop leaks, for example
modifying rigs to avoid discharge during fuel
transfer.
Capabilities in Kazakhstan to determine
the environmental situation are already
reasonable, thus building on them offers
potential opportunities. In the short term the
utilization of satellite remote sensing and
multi-spectral sensing from aircraft should
be increased, together with adopting biosensing
technology. Such capabilities should
be driven further in the near to medium term
by further improvements in the sensitivity of
equipment to contaminants, integrated early
deployment of more advanced bio-sensing
and rapid, mobile analysis laboratories for
in-depth spot monitoring.
Kazakhstan Upstream oil & gas technology and R&D roadmap