EVTN
Market Opportunity:
The need for effective and cost efficient wastewater treatment and separation technology is global in scale. Moreover, virtually every industry requires some type of separation process either during the manufacturing process, prior to treatment or discharge of wastewater into the environment, for general clean up, or emergency response capability. Separation processes, however, are largely unknown to the average consumer. These processes are deeply integrated in almost all industrial processes from oil to wastewater to manufacturing. Management believes that the Voraxial® technology has applications in most, if not all major separation industries.....
If, as we expect, environmental regulations, both domestically and internationally, become more stringent, companies will be required to more effectively treat their wastewater prior to discharge. We believe this offers a great opportunity for the Company as the Voraxial® Separator can be utilized in most separation applications to significantly increase the efficiency of the separation processes while simultaneously reduce the cost to the end-user.
Management believes that the oil industry, and more specifically the produced water market within this industry, represents a great opportunity for significant sales growth for the Voraxial Separator. The produced water market is worldwide and the need for effective produced water (oil/water) separation is a major issue for both offshore and land-based oil production facilities. The ability to efficiently separate produced water waste streams (oil and water) has enormous economical and environmental consequences for the oil production industry. Produced water comprises over 98% of the total waste volume generated by the oil and gas industry, making it the largest volume waste stream associated with oil and gas production.
Oil reservoirs frequently contain large volumes of water and as oil wells mature (the oil field becomes depleted), the amount of produced water increases. In the continental US, it is estimated that 7-10 barrels of water is produced for each barrel of recovered oil. According to the Argonne National Laboratory 2007 White Paper, “approximately 15 to 20 billion bbl (barrels; 1 bbl = 42 U.S. gallons) of produced water are generated each year in the United States. This is equivalent to a volume of 1.7 to 2.3 billion gallons per day.” Worldwide, the total amount of produced water generated, excluding the United States, is approximately 50 billon barrels (approximately 6 billion gallons per day). Produced water volumes will continue to increase as oil wells mature.
The necessity to process and efficiently separate high volumes of liquids coupled with the more stringent environmental regulations worldwide is increasing the demand for the Voraxial® Separator. The Voraxial® Separator provides a cost effective way to separate large volumes of produced or re-injection water for both on-land and offshore production facilities. The Voraxial® provides superior separation while decreasing the amount of space, energy and weight to conduct the separation. In addition to oil separation, the Voraxial can also perform solid (sand and grit) extraction, which prevents production damage by increasing the life of the well.
The Company also expects market opportunities to present themselves because of increased governmental regulation and standards enforcement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), and the European Union Commission on the Environment. Additionally, emerging markets worldwide are opening as growing nations recognize the need and benefit of addressing the environmental issues faced by population growth and industrialization, such as China, Mexico, and South America.
Competitive Advantage
The unique characteristics of the Voraxial® allow it to be utilized either as a stand-alone unit or within an existing system to provide a more efficient and cost effective way to handle the separation needs of the customer. We believe the Voraxial® Separator can result in a cost savings and other benefits to the customer. These benefits result in and include:
·A reduction in water and energy usage,
·Requires no pressure drop to perform separation,
·Less space needed to implement the Voraxial® Separator; the Voraxial® Separator weighs less than existing systems,
·A reduction in time to process and separate the fluids, allowing the customer to be more efficient,
·Creation of a more efficient and faster process to treat water to increase the overall productivity of the end-user,
·A reduction in the amount of disposable liquids,
·Fewer employees needed to operate the system, and
·Reduction of ongoing maintenance and servicing costs.
We believe that we are the only front-end solution for the separation industry that can offer increased productivity while reducing the physical space and energy required to operate the unit. These advantages translate into the potential for substantial operating cost efficiencies that would increase the profitability of the solution’s end user. The Voraxial’s unique characteristic to conduct separation without a pressure loss allows the unit to be installed in locations other technologies cannot. For instance another separation technology in the oil industry called a hydrocyclone requires a significant pressure loss to perform separation. This characteristic gives the customer a more economical way to achieve separation.
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