Water. desalination + reuse

BUSINESS | 8 | Desalination & Water Reuse | May-June 2014 Doosan Enpure secures Escondida pretreatment Doosan Enpure has secured a US$ 17 million contract to design, procure and supply the pretreatment plant for the desalination part of the Escondida Water Supply Project at the world's largest copper mine in Chile's Atacama desert. From its Birmingham, UK, office, Doosan Enpure will design, supply and install a 446,000 m 3 /d pretreatment plant, comprising sixty 12.5 x 4 m rubber-lined pressure dual-media filters, complete with automated media-reloading system and scouring air-blowers. Avtar Jirh, managing director of Doosan Enpure said, "To secure this contract in only our first year shows that clients understand how our expertise in filtration can provide solutions to a wide range of industrial applications". The US$ 103 million project is part of an overall US$ 3.4 billion expansion of the mine, which contributes 4% of the country's GDP. The Escondida seawater desalination plant, which is being built by Doosan Heavy Industries for main contractor Bechtel, will have a combined daily output of about 220,000 m³/d, making it the largest reverse-osmosis project to be constructed in the Latin American region. Suez subsidiary United Water has been awarded a renewed contract by West Basin Municipal Water District in California to continue to operate and maintain the Edward C Little Water Recycling Facility including four satellite plants. United Water's contract lasts for the next five years, representing nearly US$ 50 million. Together the facilities represent the largest water recycling activity in their category in the USA; they are also the only ones in the world that can produce five different grades of recycled water. The Edward C Little plant produces over 40 MGD (150,000 m 3 /d) of water for industrial and other uses. It produces approximately 12 MGD (45,000 m 3 /d) of highly purified indirect drinking water for use in a seawater intrusion barrier that protects local groundwater and also augments local groundwater supplies. "Through innovative solutions and strategic partnerships, reuse is a real way of tackling the challenge to preserve water resources and alleviate water stress around the world," concluded Marie-Ange Debon, deputy CEO of Suez Environnement in charge of the International Division. "Reuse is clearly a solution for the future, offering major avenues for improvement." West Basin rehires United Water for water-reuse plant BEL to supply Escondida pressure-vessels Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction has chosen BEL reverse-osmosis (RO) membrane pressure-vessels for its Escondida seawater RO project in Chile. BEL will supply more than 2,500 pressure-vessels equipped with high- grade steel side-ports in a state-of-the-art multiport arrangement. The SWRO plant, which is Doosan's first project in Latin America, will have a daily output of 220,000 m 3 /d, making it also the largest RO scheme to be built in Latin America. Ecopetrol America Inc, the US subsidiary of the Colombian national oil company, has awarded a contract to Veolia to provide equipment and services that will be used to treat the produced water from the Castilla oilfields in the Llanos Basin, southeast of Bogota. Under the US$ 73 million contract, Veolia will design and supply the equipment and material, supervise installation and commissioning, start-up, pre-operate and assist in the operations. The technologies implemented by Veolia were selected for their efficiency and robust design, intended for heavy-duty remote areas, where high reliability and low maintenance are required. Their very low energy and chemical consumption will contribute to building environmentally sound water treatment facilities while enabling Ecopetrol to continue its expansion of the Castilla site, thereby increasing production of oil. Veolia will provide an integrated system to remove and recover oil from the produced water, treat sludge and cool the water prior to discharge. The project is divided into three trains, each with 8 corrugated plate interceptor units, 15 AutoFlot™ induced gas flotation units and 13 PowerClean™ walnut shell filters, followed by cooling towers in the final step. Veolia will provide engineering and raw materials to interconnect the treatment equipment and automation systems for control. Sludge will be treated by specialized equipment designed to recover liquid and reduce sludge volume. Veolia gains Colombian produced-water contract MEG Energy Corp has selected GE evaporation technology for reusing steam generator water for boiler feed in a bitumen extraction project in Alberta, Canada. The Christina Lake project uses both cogeneration and once-through steam generators to drive the steam-assisted gravity drainage process for the production of bitumen from oil sands. GE's evaporators will be used to recycle a significant portion of the steam generator blowdown for Phases 2B and 3A of the project rather than disposing of it by deep well injection. GE will supply fifth generation, fully modularized evaporator systems, which are designed to achieve the lowest possible project costs. GE evaporators chosen for Alberta SAGD

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