Hazardous production facilities that are fully depreciated or are about to reach the end of their useful life, or are excluded from operation for any other reason, shall be abandoned in line with the laws of the countries where these production facilities are located.
The Company has developed a corporate standard that regulates procedures for demolition and disassembly of hazardous production facilities, treatment of wastes, generated in the course of abandonment, land reclamation and other related processes, excluding conservation of facilities and lands.
Before the process of hazardous facility abandonment commences, the Company develops a package of supporting documents. This package covers all technical and technological solutions that provide for:
• protection of people, mitigation of financial losses, incurred by potential emergencies at abandoned facilities, buildings or their structures;
• restoration of the environment, including regeneration of its components;
• protection of people and territories from fires and man-made or natural emergencies that might occur in the course of abandonment.
Supporting package is developed in line with the legislation and includes, though is not limited to, detailed descriptions of technologies that will be used to abandon hazardous production facilities, as well the analysis of hazards that accompany potential emergencies and assessment of emergency risks.
The package also contains information pertaining to environmental protection in the course of abandonment of hazardous facilities, for instance:
• assessment of the condition of the territory (assessment of environment components, subsoil resources included);
• assessment of environmental impact produced by abandonment actions;
• environmental risk assessment;
• a list of measures to be taken to prevent and/or mitigate potential environmental impact;
• a land reclamation project;
• details of the industrial environmental monitoring of changes in all environmental components before and after abandonment.
The development of the package also implies assessment of how frequent and intensive the hazardous natural processes are in the area where abandonment takes place. The documents shall also provide for their hazard category and assessment of the possibility of sinks, cavities, flooding and swamping of lands and other negative effects that might appear during or because of abandonment of a hazardous facility, as well as assessment of their impact on the environment and subsoils.
The territory condition assessment, performed against components of the environment, including subsoil resources, provides:
- climate, geomorphological, engineering and geological, hydrogeological, hydrological and soil conditions of the area, where facilities are located (environmental status of soils and their contamination status included);
- data on current man-made impact;
- description of actual condition of environmental components before the start of the abandonment (including data on contamination status of topsoil on areas, adjacent to sites where the to be abandoned hazardous facilities are located, classes of soil in terms of polluting impact and other data);
- description of animal and vegetation societies;
- data on social and economic status of the area where the to be abandoned facilities are located;
- data on use-restricted areas, specially protected natural territories, territories of cultural heritage of the Russian Federation, territories, traditionally used by indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation;
- general assessment of the actual status of ecosystems, resistance to external impact and ability to recover.
The assessment of the impact the abandonment will produce on the environment includes:
assessment of the scope of works that will be required for each environmental component that is expected to be sensitive to the potential impact;
assessment of how environmental components will potentially change in area, affected by an abandoned facility and its abandonment;
assessment of potential changes in social and economic status of the area in the course of abandonment, the impact the abandonment will produce on health.
The list of measures, taken to prevent and/or mitigate possible environmental impact that can be produced by the abandonment, includes:
measures to protect surface and subsoil waters (specific aspects of abandonment of facilities in water protection or fish preservation areas specified);
measures taken for protection and rational use of lands and topsoil;
measures to protect subsoil reserves;
measures to mitigate risks of emergencies;
measures to protect flora and fauna (Red Book species specified, if any);
measures to protect air and decrease physical impact (noise, vibrations, etc.);
