Produced Water Absorbents of Ohio yesterday commercially launched its 'break through' Osorb technology for the treatment of oil and gas waste water streams at OTC.
Osorb is a regenerable granular media, which PWA says removes up to 99% of free, dispersed, emulsified and soluble hydrocarbons and oilfield chemicals from water, in both on and offshore applications.
The environmental oilfield service provider was set up in June 2011 to commercialise Osorb, which had been developed by a professor at the College of Wooster in Ohio.
During the past two years, the company has carried out a number of successful field trials in the USA and recently ran its first international trial onshore in the Far East. The results demonstrated an average 96.2% reduction in Oil in Water (OIW) from 85 to 2.9 ppm (parts per million), it says.
CEO Neil Poxon, who joined the firm in November 2012 from ITF, the global technology facilitator, said there is a growing demand for this type of technology.
“Osorb offers a huge step forward in the produced water arena where there is now more pressure from legislators to reduce the Environmental Impact Factor," he said.
“This media sets itself apart from its competition primarily due to its performance, flexibility of application and reusability, without the generation of any waste to be transported and disposed.
"Osorb is more efficient than many other technologies on the market at removing soluble organics and therefore brings major benefits to the completions process."
He explained that Osorb, which is applied in a granular form, has a high affinity for organic compounds and repels water. It attracts and retains the contaminants in water which need to be removed in order to make the produced water safe for disposal.
The contaminants, including oil, can then be stripped off in a variety of ways depending on the local situation, and the media 'regenerated' and used again. What is more, elements removed from the water can be recovered, including oil and polymers used in enhanced oil recovery.
PWA said the media can be applied in a vessel, canister or injected into the flow stream, then recovered and reused.
“As a multi-faceted and multiple-use technology, the potential for its use in other markets, such as deluge water and oil spill recovery, cannot be underestimated," added Poxon.
"We have an incredibly busy year ahead with further field trials and international business growth and have already received very positive feedback from global industry players.”
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