Canadian oil refinery to reuse 100 per cent of water with GE’s wastewater treatment technology

Federated Co-Operatives Limited’s Co-op Refinery Complex in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, is installing GE’s advanced water recycling technology for a wastewater improvement project that will enable the refinery to clean 100 per cent of its wastewater on-site. Once fully operational, the Co-op Refinery Complex will be the only refinery in North America to recycle all of its wastewater for steam production, which is used for heating, hydrogen production, to power equipment and for cooling towers.

Several years ago the refinery expanded its operations to produce 30,000 more barrels of oil per day (BPD) taking it from 100,000 BPD to a 130,000-BPD facility, which increased its water usage. The refinery’s current water source is a blend of well water and city water, and restrictions on water use mandated that the Co-op Refinery Complex had to find a new source of water. GE offered a solution combining ZeeWeed* membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology and a high-efficiency reverse osmosis (HERO*) system to recycle and reuse 2 million gallons of wastewater a day. In addition to the water reuse solution, GE provides the refinery with wastewater specialty chemicals and monitoring solutions to provide system optimisation.

After commissioning, the refinery will reduce its use of freshwater by 28 per cent, which is the equivalent of approximately 3,100 households in Regina, on an annual basis. By recycling 100 per cent of its wastewater on-site, the Co-op Refinery Complex will significantly decrease volatile organic compound emissions from its wastewater ponds and reduce the associated nuisance odours. The wastewater improvement project is expected to be fully operational by the fall of 2016.