Waste Management

Our commitment to reducing our impact on the environment also applies to waste generation. Although the reduction of hazardous waste generation is a priority, we must still pay close attention to waste resulting from maintenance, construction activities or unexpected events.

MOL Group’s waste management strategy is based on the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle-Responsible Disposal (so-called “4R”) principle, which represents the cornerstone of sustainability. This waste management hierarchy means that the first priority is to prevent the generation of waste and reduce its amount as far as possible. Since there are technologies and processes which make waste generation unavoidable, we make constant efforts to reuse or recycle/recover these kinds of waste. If disposal is the only solution, it is managed responsibly, respecting all relevant legal requirements. Our Group and company level annual waste management action plans are also built upon the 4R principle and are intended to ensure that constant improvement in waste management practices is met.

We maintain a Total Waste Management system, regulating all waste related processes. It focuses on efficiency-improvements, reduction of the volume of disposed waste and the increase of valued, reused, recycled or recovered waste. The operation of the system depends on the well-known PCDA principle which includes the possibility of ongoing continuous improvement of the system. The basic pillars of the system are legal compliance and the follow up / documentation of the processes. To supply our requirements we have terminated long-term waste management contracts. We are introducing the system in MOL Nyrt. and its significant Hungarian subsidiaries. As a result of this approach, in 2009 the cost of waste material treatment was reduced more than 20% and in 2010 an additional 10% reduction in costs was achieved.

Exploration-production
Most of the wastes produced by the operations of the Exploration-Production Division (50-55%) are drilling mud. As a result of the presently applied best available technology (BAT), none of the materials used for drilling mud belong to the category of dangerous materials, thus during our operations we do not produce any dangerous waste under ordinary circumstances. These wastes are dominantly utilised.
The other main group of wastes included oily mud waste from tank cleaning operations and this is classified as hazardous material. The mud produced during large tank cleaning operations is first centrifuged in order to reduce the volume, then the separated liquid is re-injected into deep underground reservoirs in accordance with the relevant permits, thus the volume of materials to be decontaminated is significantly lessened.
Our future target is to further reduce the quantity of waste by applying “waste-poor” technologies and enhancing de-hydration of tank mud.

Logistics
RMD Logistic depots are primarily engaged in storing and distributing various oil and LPG products. The main waste flows of Logistics include materials from tank cleaning operations, oily mud produced during waste water treatment plants, construction and demolition debris during projects, as well as dangerous materials produced during remediation of pollution associated with past operations. Our goals include deepening operationalisation of the waste management hierarchy into the operative processes and further increasing the ratio of waste utilisation.

Refining
RMD Refining Division sites produce various fractions from crude oil, as the basic feedstock for a number of end-products or other technologies. We can define different categories for the main waste flows, like wastes from production processes, including end-of-pipe technologies (e.g. waste from industrial wastewater treatment equipment), construction and demolition debris arising from projects, dangerous mud from tank farm cleaning/maintenance as well as wastes from maintenance processes. Our goals include further increasing the ratio of waste utilisation, reducing the quantity of waste and optimising the waste incineration plants.

Petrochemistry
The main waste flows can be categorised into two major groups. The first contains waste produced from olefin and polymer production, which also includes wastes generated from treatment of waste water produced during the said processes. The other group includes construction and demolition debris arising from projects.
The potential for reduction in the quantity of wastes is minor as production processes have already been optimised thus our goal is to improve the ratio of waste utilisation along with increasing cost efficiency.

For more information about waste management can be found in MOL Group’s Annual Reports (2008, 2009 and 2010).