Water treatment technology for treating produced water from oil sands thermal processes such as steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) was introduced by Aquatech on 11 May 2013.
The HEVAP™ high efficiency evaporation process preconditions the feedwater by incorporating a softening step combined with additional conditioning of the feedwater prior to treatment by the evaporators. This process provides the evaporators with essentially a scale-free environment in which to operate.
“Increasingly, oil producers in Alberta are choosing to go with evaporation technology as the treatment method for reusing/recycling their produced water in thermal SAGD process because it offers a variety of benefits including higher water recovery rates (lower make-up / reduced blow down), smaller footprint, and easier operability,” said Alan R Daza, vice president of sales and business development for Aquatech‘s Infrastructure & Major Projects division.
“However, managing scaling has been a challenge with evaporation technology. Aquatech’s HEVAP evaporative process addresses this issue as it has been engineered to operate in a scale-free environment while also providing other process advantages to oil producers,” he added.
Other advantages, which help lower operating expense and life-cycle costs, include:
· High allowable concentration factors
· Increased recovery of high quality reusable water
· No requirement for anti-scalants
· No requirement for EDTA dosing
· No requirement for mechanical cleaning.