DO'S AND DON'TS IN DRILLING WASTE INJECTION WITH CASE EXAMPLES

Drill cuttings re-injection (CRI), or more generically drilling waste injection into subsurface strata often is the preferred safe and costeffective option for handling wastes generated during the drilling operation. Owing to its capacity to return oily cuttings to their place of origin, this technology allows operators to safely and economically achieve zero discharge. When the technology started about a decade ago, injection into a single well had a maximum slurry volume of approximately 30,000 bbl. Now, particularly in very large projects, several million barrels of slurry may be injected into a single well, which, in comparison, represents more than 1,000 times the volume of a typical hydraulic fracturing job or more than 100 times that of earlier cuttings re-injection jobs.