OREANDA-NEWS. April 21, 2010. Oil & Gas Production Boards of OAO TATNEFT have fully stopped discharge of untreated industrial wastewater into the Ik River (571 km long left tributary of the Kama River) flowing through the territory of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan. This has been the result of purposeful work to minimize the impact of the Company's facilities operation on the environment, reported the press-centre of TATNEFT.

Construction and commissioning of the Tumutuk water treatment facilities system for re-circulation of waste water has been completed, where the process fluid is treated prior to usage by all Oil & Gas Production Boards for the purpose of maintaining reservoir pressure. The amount of 34.8 million rubles, including 11.5 million rubles in 2009, has been spent since the beginning of construction works in 2007. Now, the waste water from washing of the filters is cleaned by sedimentation, and then returned to the head of facilities for reuse. Settled sludge is dehydrated on belt press filters and transported to the industrial waste disposal site.

In general, OAO TATNEFT has developed and implemented an operational monitoring system for quality control of surface and groundwater in the territory of its activity. The hydro-monitoring system involves over 1,220 observation points. Implementation of measures to protect water bodies resulted in keeping chloride content in the main rivers within the maximum permissible concentration (MPC). The quality of major rivers with regard to the content of dissolved and emulsified oil and petroleum products meets the requirements for commercial fishing values and is significantly lower than the MPC.