A new way of calculating wet waste volumes is producing more precise results – and cutting disposal costs for operators.

The Challenge:

Increasing accuracy of the final calculated weights of offshore wet waste and reducing client disposal costs.

The long-established convention has been to take one line sample per discharge of wet bulk waste – or slops – and weigh it for its specific gravity (SG); multiplying out the final shore volume by the SG enables a calculation of the product weight and consequent disposal expenditure.

AMS has tracked how the SG changes at different stages of the operation, leading to inaccurate final weights.

The Response:

AMS has developed a methodology to increase process accuracy, based on a series of practical measures.

The methodology includes:

  • The waste product being discharged individually per tank
  • Sampling work undertaken at the start, middle and end from each vessel tank
  • Surveyors establishing weights for all three samples on the quayside and calculating the average SG from this spread
  • The use of specialist tools to take more accurate samples from shore tanks.

The Result:

This distinctive approach increases the accuracy of the final weight calculation by an average of 25%.
In a trial exercise, one AMS client saved more than £37,000 in disposal costs over six months – for no additional outlay.