At present, environmental legislation bounds the drilling operators in drilling wastes removal. The rapid increasing sensitivity of drilling waste management forced many countries to develop environmental guidelines for their drilling operations. This research studies some sorts of waste produced during upstream petroleum activities, particularly while drilling. After that, many hazards and impacts on the environment are addressed, as well as their principal treatment techniques. This paper tries to give a modest and theoretical vision over the present environmental standard and waste management design, realized in a universal scale. Then, the technologies that could be suitable with the Lebanese drilling fields would be addressed. This may assist companies and individual approaches toward coming drilling operations in Lebanon with concern of environment.

Keywords: environmental effects, legislation, drilling wastes, offshore/onshore