Treatment of Oil-Contaminated Drill Cuttings of South Pars Gas Field in Iran Using Supercritical Carbon Dioxide

New treatment technologies are currently being investigated for the treatment of contaminated drilling waste mud with oil. Supercritical fluid extraction is a promising technology that could be effectively used to extract this contaminated drilling waste mud. In this work, one step extraction efficiency of supercritical carbon dioxide to drilling waste mud of South Pars gas field has been investigated at a range of temperatures (55 to 79.5 °C), and over a pressure range of 160 to 220 bar. Extraction efficiencies were calculated based on cuttings weight loss. Results show that approximately 28.45 % of cuttings weight loss in one step extraction at a pressure of 200 bar and temperature of 60 °C can be extracted by supercritical carbon dioxide.