Wescorp Defines Strategy for Gulf of MexicoL94TTWescorp Defines Strategy for Gulf of Mexico Spill Remediation andLong-Term Regulatory Implications for Off-Shore Oil and Gas Operations
CALGARY, Alberta--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wescorp Energy Inc. (OTCBB:WSCE), a clean water technology company focused on implementing itslow-cost solutions into several markets including the oil & gas andmarine industries, today further defined its strategy to enter themarket to provide services for the oil spill recovery efforts in theGulf of Mexico. Management is in active discussions with contractors andgovernment agencies involved in the Gulf clean-up efforts to attempt toobtain the right opportunity for Wescorp to introduce its H2Omaxxwater remediation technology in support of the oil spill recoveryefforts.
“Our goal is to locate a right opportunity for Wescorp’s H2Omaxxtechnology to be deployed in a marine environment in order todemonstrate its unusually cost effective and efficient oil/waterseparation”
“Our goal is to locate a right opportunity for Wescorp’s H2Omaxxtechnology to be deployed in a marine environment in order todemonstrate its unusually cost effective and efficient oil/waterseparation,” states Robert G. Power, Executive Chairman of Wescorp. “Wemade a conscious decision to not jump into this new area until weclearly understood the issues and challenges related to the Gulf spilland clean up efforts. As a result, Wescorp has been actively examiningand receiving feedback about the actual technology challenges andopportunities for on- and off-shore oil/water separation.
“In September, we expect to achieve two important milestones. Weanticipate receiving the independent test data from the ongoingcommercial H2Omaxx operation from the New Sarepta, Albertasite. That same month, we also look forward to taking delivery of ourfirst larger capacity 10,000 barrel-a-day treatment unit. At that point,we believe Wescorp will be well positioned to deploy a land-based H2Omaxxunit for use in the Gulf of Mexico clean-up.
“It is important to recognize that the clean-up will go on for manymonths, and possibly years. We want to ensure that our technology worksproperly for the specific Gulf circumstances, and we have the confidencethat H2Omaxx will then prove itself in the field. Few of thenew technologies that have been deployed to date in the initial clean-upoperations have achieved any new efficiencies. Our objective is to setnew performance standards,” Power said.
Richard Dalati, VP Gulf of Mexico and International Business, added,“Wescorp has been actively pursuing opportunities for both on-shore andoff-shore oil spill recovery applications in the Gulf of Mexico. At thesame time, we are also pursuing opportunities related to off-shoreproduction water remediation applications. H2Omaxx technologyis economically competitive and environmentally benign, as it does notuse any chemicals. Operationally, the unit is simple to use, and canquickly and efficiently process high volumes of contaminated water.
“Looking ahead, we believe, as do other leaders in the industry, thatthe off-shore oil and gas industry will come under much stricterregulatory requirements for oil/water separation and for emergencyresponse to oil spills. Our H2Omaxx technology provides aunique solution for both of these regulatory objectives. We expectWescorp to play an active role and be part of the discussion goingforward in terms of the technologies and standards that will likely beadopted to meet the new regulatory requirements.
“Equally important,” Dalati continued, “Wescorp has now designed a unitto operate in a variety of marine environments - at sea, on a drillingrig, or on a ship. There is presently no technology that operates in alarge sea swell (heave) environment under a wide variety of conditions.We expect testing will prove that H2Omaxx will operateeffectively at sea, and the technology will be in demand by the marineindustry because of its low cost, small footprint and light weightspecifications,” concluded Dalati.
H2Omaxx Technology
H2Omaxx has been proven to be a safe, effective, economicaland environmentally friendly process for cleaning and separating oil andsolids from water. Using Wescorp’s nano-aeration technology, independenttest results have shown the H2Omaxx technology to reduce theoil content in produced water to less than 10 parts per million withoutthe use of chemicals, filters or heat.
Use of H2Omaxx provides important cost benefits to theoperator when compared with the traditional multi-technology approach toremediate water. H2Omaxx can lower both the operator’scapital costs and operating costs significantly. In addition, newrevenues are created by the capture of barrels of oil that wouldotherwise be disposed.
Land-Based or Sea-Based Solution
H2Omaxx technology has been designed to produce the H2Omaxxunit in a variety of sizes, including a mobile unit and commercial units(2,500, 10,000 and 65,000 barrels-per-day). H2Omaxx solutionsaddress a wide range of oil/water separation needs:
On-Shore Production Operations
The highly mobile H2Omaxx unit can be rapidly transported tofacilities for short- or long-term commercial operations. The 10,000barrel-per-day unit has its own storage, separation and containmenttanks, micro-aeration generators and firmware and computer automationtechnology to allow water remediation with minimal human supervision.Wescorp expects to take delivery of its first manufactured 10,000barrel-per-day unit in September.
Large Volume/Sea Water EmergencyResponse
A large volume skid-mounted unit has been designed to clean up to 65,000barrels or 2.8 million gallons of oily seawater per day. Multiple unitscould be coupled together to meet the demands required in the Gulfdisaster. The H2Omaxx oil/seawater separation technology isdesigned to remediate oily water to a standard to meet the EnvironmentalProtection Agency’s limits of 29 parts per million (ppm) monthly average– 42 ppm maximum daily “oil and grease” content. This unit has beendesigned to operate either on land or on the sea. Wescorp will market alarge scale emergency response unit as part of its ongoing marketingefforts to marine and emergency response customers. Wescorp will seek tosecure a customer for this type of unit before commissioning itsconstruction.
Off-Shore Oil & Gas Production
Wescorp believes that a compact skid-mounted unit can be used toremediate produced water from an off-shore production platform to alevel that should allow it to be discharged overboard. The unit wouldprovide a smaller footprint (less weight, less size and less energyrequirements) than the multiple pieces of equipment traditionally usedfor offshore platforms. Wescorp also intends to market a compactskid-mounted unit as part of its ongoing sales efforts.
Key operating advantages for the off-shore industry are expected toinclude:
- High Throughput / Low Retention: The low retention time required by H2Omaxx technology will greatly reduce the weight of water in process relative to the throughput.
- Wide Input Tolerances: Many other technologies only perform at peak levels within a narrow range of input flow rates and/or the percentage of hydrocarbons in the input solution. These operationally sensitive technologies require preconditioning or waste storage containers to manage the input specifications. This operation of the H2Omaxx unit will not require preconditioning and storage, thus decreasing overall treatment system cost, weight and space requirements.
Because of these traditional technology challenges, many productionplatforms choose instead to ship produced water to on-shore processingfacilities, thereby significantly increasing costs and environmentaloperating risks. These costs and risks will be mitigated with the use ofH2Omaxx.