Quick Hits: Refresh Resources
Refresh Resources is a privately owned remediation company that has developed a patent pending technology to clean produced water storage facilities.
Large addressable market: Currently 70+ active ponds in BC alone. North American oil and gas companies produced over 1 billion m3 in 2021.
Current solutions are invasive, costly, and slow.
Two pending PO’s from large Oil and Gas companies for remediation of a total of 8-10 ponds.
Ideal solution for oil and gas producing areas with limited access to fresh water such as the Permian basin
One of the unwanted by-products of fracking is the contaminated produced water that flows back. This water is rich in contaminants including heavy metals, such as Iron and Barium, high concentrations of salt, and fracking chemicals to name a few. Currently the processes to clean this oil field produced water and dispose of associated sediment and contaminants are very expensive, resulting in significant costs for operators.
Refresh Resources has a lower cost and more efficient solution that cleans produced water in surface ponds for reuse while reducing the dependence of freshwater used in oil and gas fracturing operations.
Currently when produced water ponds reach a saturation level where they can no longer be used they need to be cleaned out. The choices are either through an on site central water processing facility (CWPF) or labour crews & equipment are brought in to physically clean the sediment from the pond. Unfortunately both of these solutions have some severe limitations.
The CWPF is a very effective method of cleaning the produced water but has significant upfront costs as well as ongoing maintenance of the facility that only energy companies processing large quantities of produced water can justify.
Alternatively contractors are brought in who use a series of different methods including filtration, chemical treatment and hydrovac truck to remove the settled sediment. So far these methods are time consuming, often shutting down the pond in excess of 30 days, costly, invasive and result in large amounts of waste that then needs to be disposed of.
Refresh helps mitigate these drawbacks through its 8 stage remediation process but the real advantage of the Refresh approach is twofold.
First, it uses its patent pending chemical treatment to suspend contaminants in the water which allows for a less invasive and timely removal process. Unlike with hydro-vac trucks the liner of the pond is never in contact with the equipment removing the potential for a costly tear.
The second main benefit is how Refresh manages the removed waste. Traditionally the clean up process would result in the contaminated water being pumped back into a disposal well which very costly. Refresh has a solution where they introduce a product that creates a stackable solid when mixed with the slurry which allows for these contaminants to be hauled for land farm disposal, drastically reducing disposal costs.
If you or your company are interested in learning more about the company and what solutions it could offer you please reach out to info@4frontadvisory.com