Getting oil from the ground isn’t always an efficient business. On average, oil companies will produce four barrels of water for every 1 barrel of oil they’re able to extract. Once they separate the oil and water, that water is contaminated, resulting in a lot of waste. Researchers at the University of Regina are trying to change that.
“So what we’re going to do is take the water and filtrate it through a series of membranes in such a way that it will eliminate the oil and all the total solids and any contaminant material,” said Professor Amr Henni, head of the Industrial Systems Engineering department.
If Henni is successful, his team could restore the water back to a state where it could be used for irrigation, or even drinking water.
He’s been waiting to start this project for over a year. Friday his funding finally came through. The provincial and federal governments are investing 800 thousand dollars in the petroleum research centre, and Henni’s project is one of three receiving a cut. The other two projects also focus on enhanced recovery methods. Both governments say this is exactly the kind of technology western Canada is looking for.
“It’s new. It’s innovative. It’s creative,” said Ray Boughen, MP for Palliser. “It’s making use of the environment that now sits there.”
“It’s also the direction that everyone is expecting,” said Laura Ross, Minister of Government Services. “People are being a little more responsible, but also thinking of the future within this province and the earth as a whole.”
Although Henni’s project is leading edge, he isn’t the only one working on the concept. But he is hoping to be the one to develop it so companies can use it full scale.
Now that the funding has been found they hope to purchase equipment and set up a lab by the end of March. He says they won’t have any concrete results for at least two years.
“It’s a long term project,” Henni said. “But the application is world wide.”
The average cost to the industry for water treatment is three to five million dollars per day. The secondary goal of the project will be to cut that cost by using more effective materials.
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