Kuwait environmental remediation program: inorganic and organic characterization of wet oil lakes, dry oil lakes and oil contaminated piles in burgan fields of Kuwait

This paper describes the contaminated features in one of the project area under South Kuwait Excavation, Transportation and Remediation (SKETR) in Burgan oil fields of Kuwait. The contaminated areas were particularly comprised of three main features viz. Wet Oil Lakes (WOL), Dry Oil Lakes (DOLs) and Oil Contaminated Piles (OCPs). The various types and layers of these main features (WOLs, DOLs & OCPs) were further described in the paper. For the purpose of characterization in terms of both inorganic and organic, soil samples were collected as per the international standard and were analyzed for key parameters such as pH, Sodium Absorption Ratio, Electrical Conductivity, Nutrients, Chlorides and Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons. The test results of the analysis particularly under various layers of each type of feature was discussed with a focus on the minimum, average and maximum values. Based on the test results discussed, it is concluded that Wet Oil Lakes were characterized as severely contaminated with hydrocarbon contamination in comparison to Dry Oil Lakes and Oil Contaminated Piles. It was also seen that much of the contamination was confined to top two layers in both Wet Oil Lakes and Dry Oil Lakes out of the total three layers.