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Gold/Mining/Energy : Oil Sands and Related Stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KyrosL who wrote (20128)	4/4/2008 12:16:03 AM
From: stan_hughes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25575

"Right now I think they just inject it back into the ground" Perhaps one can reasonably deduce that the water is clean (certainly cleaner than tar sands operations), but that's probably not good enough -- once you bring groundwater to the surface and use it as process water, you can't just dispose of it back into the environment at your discretion, at least not without a permit -- and obtaining the permit requires you to characterize the waste (yes, process water is considered a waste) to establish that the effluent you're discharging is not contaminated as defined in that geographical jurisdiction's prevailing definition of contamination (some are slightly more permissive than others, but not by much). On the other hand, if PBG has developed a closed system where they are completely recapturing all of the process water and are recycling it over and over again without releasing any fluids to the environment, then no problemo, because that would mean that there is no effluent to give rise to the requirement for a discharge permit. However, I'm guessing that they probably release "some" quantity of "something", and that means they need to obtain the necessary discharge permits as well as gather all the waste characterization data that goes with that, i.e. doing lots of sampling over lots of sampling events until they are able to establish a reliable waste profile, and if necessary, to also develop and construct a suitable wastewater treatment facility -- and that all takes time. I have more experience in dealing with groundwater issues in Ontario than in Alberta, but the guidelines are similar everywhere across the USA and Canada in terms of environmental practise. So is PBG dealing with this for its pilot and operational models? If so, there shouldn't be any hitches with respect to water -- if not, I hope somebody in engineering gets on the case, because otherwise I can promise you that it will come back to bite them in the butt. And this time, please don't shoot the messenger and dump all over me like I'm some kind of basher -- that's what happened the last time I raised the groundwater treatment issue here many months ago. Background note: Industry Canada water quality policy with respect to hydrocarbon production -- ic.gc.ca 5.1.2 Water Quality Canada has rigid regulations with respect to the use of water for industrial purposes and the disposal of water from processing plants or oil and gas production. Water for industrial use may not be removed from wells, streams or other water bodies without approval of the responsible regulatory authority. This process water must be treated and returned to the natural environment. In Alberta, the oil and gas industry receives approximately 2.6 percent of all surface water licenses. The main uses of ground water are water flood injection for enhanced oil recovery from wells, municipal water supply, and non-irrigation agricultural use. All water produced from oil and gas wells must be returned to the underground zone of origin or to another zone approved by the regulatory authority. Water discharged from processing facilities must be treated and disposed of into an approved underground formation or conditioned to rigid standards before being discharged to a stream or other surface water body. Water is essential for the conversion of oil sands into a variety of oil products. Currently three to four cubic metres of water are used for each cubic metre of product but as extraction operations mature, this is expected to be reduced to two cubic metres of water used per cubic metre of product. Although oil sands operations have minimized their water usage, attempts have been made to reduce this even further: * In surface mining operations, operators are attempting to increase the recycle component by improving equipment design to utilize and treat poorer quality water; accelerate consolidation of tailings to release water back into the cycle; use more air cooling; and minimize operating inventories. * In in-situ operations, the aim is to improve water use through water treatment, increase the use of brackish and saline water including testing desalination technologies, achieve decreased bitumen viscosity and better oil displacement with less water by adding solvents to steam, continue to improve the steam-to-oil ratio through improved reservoir modeling and well placement, and pursuit of new no-water technologies. Driving forces in the development of technologies to increase water use efficiency are: * Public concern about: potable water availability and contamination; conservation of natural ecosystems, and keeping prescribed limits within natural fluctuations in supply. * Industry's desire to minimize water use so as to reduce operating costs related to water handling and storage.