PLAINFIELD, IL, Nov. 19, 2010 -- One of the largest heavy oil producers in Canada has selected Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies to supply the produced water evaporation system for oil sands assets in Northern Alberta. Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) technology will be utilized for recovery of bitumen for this recently sanctioned project.
The evaporation system will treat de-oiled produced water from the 40,000 barrels of bitumen per calendar day (bbl/cd) operation. The evaporation system will provide clean distillate to the steam generation system for the SAGD process. This system is comprised of three HPD evaporators and designed as a fully modular system to greatly reduce installation costs and complexity.
The evaporation system will use Silica Sorption™ technology, a process for treating produced water that operates at a lower pH than conventional high pH evaporation systems. The Silica Sorption process precipitates silica in a controlled manner, as opposed to maintaining it in solution as done in previously installed systems. Operating the evaporators at a lower pH significantly reduces chemical consumption and more importantly, allows simpler handling and flexible disposal options of the resulting concentrate that is often an issue in conventional treatment systems. The evaporation process also includes the integration of HPD Vapor Washer technology which eliminates the risk of foam carryover into the evaporator distillate produced to be used as steam generator feedwater.
Overall, this system from Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies represents the second generation of produced water evaporation technology for SAGD operations.
Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies, subsidiary of Veolia Water, is a global provider of technology solutions and design-build services in water treatment. With over 9,500 employees in 57 countries, Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies recorded revenue of $3.6 billion in 2009.
Veolia Water, the water division of Veolia Environnement, is the world leader in water and wastewater services and technological solutions. Its parent company, Veolia Environnement (NYSE: VE and Paris Euronext: VIE), is the worldwide reference in environmental services. With more than 310,000 employees in 74 countries, Veolia Environnement recorded annual revenues of $49.8 billion in 2009.
Visit the company's web sites at www.veoliawaterstna.com, www.veolianorthamerica.com and www.veoliawaterna.com.
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