Assessment of Environmental Impact of Drilling Equipment

Ali Lashgari and Vladislav Kec

Abstract

The major environmental issues in drilling operations are related to air pollutants and sound exposure. The environmental impact is assessed through the equipment exhaust and dust emissions, and sound pressure level. Exhaust emissions contain gases such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Dust generation is expressed through the particulate matter (PM10) and total suspended particulate matter (TSP). In this work, the modeling of environmental impact of drilling equipment was conducted using Microsoft Visual Studio. NET software. The results show that the annual fuel consumption for eight drilling machines in the mine was 1.62 million liters, hourly CO, NO NOx, SOx, and the total hourly and annual CO2 emission for all drills in the mine were determined to be 1,720 kg and 4,344,570 kg, respectively. The results of this work may be used by mining professionals to aid in quantifying environmental impact of drilling equipment.