RoydadNaft –  The chief executive of the West Oil and Gas Production Company said a project to clean contaminated soil in the Naftshahr operating area is using new environmental technologies.

According to Roydad Naft, citing the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company, Mahmoud Nasiri said the cleanup has several benefits. Besides fully restoring the local ecosystem, it is cost-effective: it avoids the heavy process of hauling and engineered burial of soil in remote areas, cutting costs in operating regions. Unlike traditional methods, he said, it has no destructive side effects and does not move pollution elsewhere.

Under bioremediation protocols applied over a 90-day cycle, the concentration of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) was reduced with 93% efficiency, Nasiri said.

He pointed to climate challenges and the effects of hydrocarbon leaks in surface soils at Naftshahr. The work used modern, sustainable environmental methods and the BioS-1410 technology product, with strict 15-day cycles of spraying and bacterial rest in the soil bed, and produced positive results.

The operation followed 10 engineered stages, starting with collection and transfer of contaminated soil to a treatment site. The bed was prepared by homogenizing and mechanical plowing to improve deep aeration. Baseline tests measured the initial contamination, then a precisely formulated BioS-1410 solution was sprayed in stages, with continuous moisture to keep conditions optimal for the microorganisms.

Nasiri said environmental programs that the West Oil and Gas Production Company began this year include building an evaporative lagoon with a geomembrane liner and an oil-water separator, completing the Naftshahr wastewater-injection system, building a permanent bioremediation soil-treatment site in the Dehloran operating area, installing and commissioning a sanitary wastewater-treatment system in the Sarkan-Malekuh operating area, and completing and starting up the Dehloran wastewater-injection system.

The company is also raising HSE staff skills at headquarters and in affiliated operating areas through specialized bioremediation courses to help keep the regional environment stable, he said.

The Naftshahr production unit is 220 kilometers west of Kermanshah and 60 kilometers from Qasr-e Shirin. It is one of the operating areas of the West Oil and Gas Production Company, a subsidiary of the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company.