Environmental Protection
The Company’s strategic approach to ensuring the environmental safety of the Company and subsidiaries’ operations are defined in NOVATEK’s EHS Policy which provides for the following:
- Regular ecological monitoring in license areas, ecological supervision at production facilities and carrying out environmental impact assessments before commencing work;
- Upgrading equipment and technologies to comply with environmental protection and industrial safety requirements;
- Conformance with the requirements of Russian EHS legislation;
- Rational use and conservation of natural resources and energy; and
- Introduction of non-waste and low-waste technologies.
In August 2010, NOVATEK launched a 326 kilometer unstable gas condensate pipeline connecting the Yurkharovskoye field with the Purovsky Plant. The Company was able to optimize the capital expenditures required to complete the pipeline by incorporating solar and wind power generation units to provide the necessary electricity to operate the pipeline’s tele-mechanic system and valves, instead of using a fixed electrical line. In the future, this process solution will also be used at remote well clusters.
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The Company uses hydrocarbon-based drilling mud when drilling horizontal wells, providing for the high-precision penetration of production horizons with effectively no pollution. Furthermore, the drilling mud is recovered from cuttings brought to the surface and sent for recycling.
NOVATEK is concerned about the environmental and economic issues related to the use of associated petroleum gas and has made the necessary investments in order to achieve a 95% level of associated gas usage.
In October 2010, we completed the construction of a preliminary gas discharge unit and gas pipeline connecting to the gas and gas condensate preparation unit of the East- Tarkosalinskoe field, providing for the efficient recovery of as sociated petroleum gas (APG) in an amount of approximately 100 mcm/day.
In 2010, NOVATEK continued its participation in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) which discloses information on greenhouse gas emissions and the energy efficiency of production. Despite a continuous increase in hydrocarbon production, greenhouse gas emissions from NOVATEK’s production facilities have increased only slightly compared with the previous year.
In 2010, NOVATEK and all our core subsidiaries passed compliance and recertification audits of their environmental management systems in accordance with ISO 14001-2004 and OHSAS 18001-2007 international standards.