Health, safety, and environmental challenges of xylene in upstream petroleum industry

Abstract

Xylene sited in the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC's), is considered as one of the toxic chemicals released to environment during oil and gas operations in order to remove the organic deposits such as asphaltene. Normally, wellbore soaking by xylene is performed to remove the organic plugs in the petroleum production system. However, xylene imposed detrimental impacts and continuous threat to field personnel and environment via storage and its flow backs into the waste pit. This paper illustrates oil well stimulation process and equipment and reviews the environmental challenges of xylene and gives indication of credible alternatives in stimulation oil and gas wells. This way, awareness is provided for upstream petroleum industry and environmental engineers for its risk evaluation, development of remediation and/or replacement techniques, and finally identification of future research directions.