Solutions to Frac problems

Times Contributor   

 

There is a mountain of negative information about the oil and gas industry frac practises, but Garry Bush, President of Tri Pac Engineering, located in Red Deer, said he has the answer to one of them. 

“The whole industry is polluting and leaving the containments on top of the land, or putting flow back into the wells. It pollutes watersheds. It pollutes everything. We need to be responsible and not leave it for our grandchildren to clean up or drink,” said Bush.

Bush says the water usage and leftover chemical pollutant problems, generated by fracs, are like one of life’s mountains that have to be conquered. He said he is ready to climb that mountain by marketing a Frac-Vap fluid treatment filtration system that that will take almost all the harmful chemicals from a well frac fluid, and restore the water to purified forms. The system is completely mobile and nothing is fixed to the landowner’s property. It is attached onto three 53 foot tractor trailers, and processes 5million gallons of fluid, which is the approximate amount used by one frac. One trailer houses heating equipment, pumps and heat exchangers. The second has air handlers and water towers, and the last contains a working area for stationary engineers, monitoring equipment and power supply.

The Frac-Vap process starts by testing the fluid at the containment site. The system treats fluid from surface pools or wells and is to be utilized to cleanup spills. Testing checks for approximately 700 chemicals to determine appropriate treatment processes. Test samples are submitted to a third party laboratory, to ensure fair reporting. Bush is hoping companies will be forthcoming with components of protected chemical compositions, so appropriate treatments can occur, but the tests will determine what is in the fluid. Bush said company trade secrets will be secure and kept confidential. 

Like a high school chemistry experiment, chemicals are added to cause crystallization of the frac chemicals. 

“We use crystallization to capture any chemicals in the solution. Some chemicals can’t be grabbed just by a molecular sleeve or filter. When you add another chemical to the fluid, it bonds or separates the chemicals in the solution to form crystals, so you can grab it,” said Bush.

The crystallized fluid is pumped through a successive 10 to two micron filtration system and strained, capturing the large particles. The next stage passes through heat exchange plates, heated by a boiler. The vapour rises in special water tower arrangement, where evaporation starts to take place. Any salt or brine mixtures will separate in the tower, where the salt particles can be physically removed for disposal. When the water changes state, it will leave the impurities behind. If there are any hydrocarbons in the water, these will be condensed in a separate refrigeration loop in the tower. Finally, the air will be tested to assure its cleanliness and purity before it is released.

“I have worked with refrigeration and air conditioning systems all my life. This system is based on the psychometrics of air. These are the laws of air. They don’t change. This is something that is constant,” said Bush.

The remaining chemicals will be scraped out of the tank and disposed of at proper disposal sites. The water vapour can be distilled, but because of the volume currently being processed, it is not practical and too expensive at this time. Future developments may develop ways to reclaim the water for reuse. Bush said there is also potential to recover certain crystalized chemicals for reuse. For example, calcium chloride can be recovered in crystalline form and reused by farmers or industry.

“Going by figures they are using in the States, they are currently processing fluids at about 50 cents per gallon and hiding it. It is basic human nature to dump the fluid. My goal is to process this for half the cost,” said Bush.

He feels the oil and gas contractors will benefit from this because it will be about half of what they are paying now. Landowners and public will benefit because they will not have containment on their site and chemicals pumped back in or on their land. It is a win-win situation.

Bush said no one currently provides this service. They have the patent for the process and are courting investors, which has shown some interest. They anticipate to be up and running in the next month.

“The industry doesn’t like change. I am hoping that companies will be on board once it is operational and proves itself, I think it will sell itself,” said Bush.

Bush said the Petroleum Technology Alliance of Canada was going to present it to the industry to get feedback. 

Anyone interested in more information can contact Garry Bush at gbmountain@live.ca.