In Industrial Water World's latest issue, Aquatech’s Greg Mandigo was interviewed in regards to water management strategies in the oil and gas industries. Here is an excerpt from the article:
'Water management strategies play a key role in successful upstream oil and gas operations, said Greg Mandigo, application engineering manager of industrial concentration at Aquatech. As an example, in the water-scarce region of Western Canada, Mandigo said operators are focusing on turning waste stream liabilities into positive assets for plants.
“With the availability of freshwater limited, producers routinely employ produced water treatment technology to condition the produced water for recycling as boiler feedwater for steam generation,” Mandigo said. “But in many cases, the lost opportunity is the blowdown stream leaving a once-through steam generator (OTSG). One of the significant drawbacks of OTSG technology is that only about 80 percent of the boiler feedwater is converted into steam, leaving the remainder as boiler blowdown, which represents a relatively large water flow rate and a liability. However, by converting that waste into a high-quality water, it can be reused in steam generation.”
Mandigo advised that the best technology suited for the recovery and recycle of OTSG blowdown streams is vertical-tube falling film evaporation technology. “The water quality of the evaporator distillate is far superior to the quality achieved by a conventional water treatment system and this serves to improve the boiler feedwater quality, protect the integrity of the OTSG, and reduce OTSG mechanical cleaning frequency.”
Recent project examples leveraging advanced treatment technologies demonstrate how strategic water and wastewater solutions can address a primary issue while also generating efficiencies and supplemental benefits across project sites.
