Angela Vande, Technical Services and Environmental Strategies at Vande Consulting Services
Spray On Treatment for Soil Contaminated with Hydrocarbons and Salts
Objectives/Scope: Proprietary spray on treatment addresses both old and new oil field spills. Produced water and oil can be difficult to treat after it has imbibed into the soil. Typical actions include digging, trucking, and landfilling soil contaminations.
Methods, Procedures, Process: Costs for in situ treatment are a fraction of other options and are far less invasive to the environment. Remediating the soil in place cleans up the problem instead of just moving it to a landfill. Emissions are greatly reduced because truck loads of contaminated soil are not being hauled away. Future contamination from slowly leaking landfill liners is eliminated.
Specially formulated to incorporate multiple chemical processes without the use of forever chemicals, hormone disrupters, or carcinogens.
Results, Observations, Conclusions: The ability to remediate additional sites for equivalent budget of one site allows more remediation for less investment. Third party lab tests confirm both oil and produced water treated soil contamination improves over 80% in about 2.5 months. Costs typically come in less than half of conventional budgeting.
Novel/Additive Information: No foreign bacteria is added, by design. With about 60,000 native species in a teaspoon of soil, this ratio is not disrupted. Further, salt remediation can be difficult to treat due to the tight sodium to soil bonds and particle disaggregation. Our chemistry harnesses the powerful, natural process of healing, digestion, molecular bonding, and soil vulnerability.
Proprietary spray on treatment addresses both old and new oil field spills. Produced water and oil can be difficult to treat after it has imbibed into the soil. Typical actions include digging, trucking, and landfilling soil contaminations.
A better way has been developed and proven for several years. Remediating the soil in place cleans up the problem instead of just moving it to a landfill. Emissions are greatly reduced because truck loads of contaminated soil are not being hauled away. Future contamination from slowly leaking landfill liners is eliminated.
Costs for in situ treatment are a fraction of other options. Therefore, the benefit to companies includes the option to remediate additional sites for equivalent budget of one site. Third party lab tests confirm both oil and produced water treated soil contamination improves over 80% in about 2.5 months. Costs typically come in less than half of conventional budgeting. Emissions are reduced by about 90%.
Dean MacKenzie, Vice President, Environment at Vertex Resource Group Ltd.
RESTART: Transforming Reclamation through Soil-Based Solutions
RESTART is an innovative reclamation technology developed by Vertex Resource Group, designed to enhance the restoration of highly disturbed sites. Traditional reclamation methods, which rely on nursery-grown plants, often face limitations such as high costs, lack of available seed at a commercial scale, greenhouse constraints, and reduced biodiversity. In contrast, RESTART leverages the natural regenerative properties of forest surface soil (LFH), which contains a diverse range of native species, microorganisms, and fungi critical for ecosystem recovery.
The RESTART process involves wetting and compressing LFH into units, or “pucks,” that are easy to transport, store, and place on disturbed land. These pucks retain essential nutrients and moisture, providing an optimal environment for native plant establishment. The process is cost-effective, scalable, and can reclaim up to 50 hectares of land per hectare of salvaged material. Additionally, RESTART promotes biodiversity, improves plant survivability, and creates microsites that enhance erosion control and moisture retention.
This presentation will introduce RESTART’s unique approach to reclamation, demonstrating its potential to sustainably restore disturbed landscapes while reducing carbon footprints and costs compared to conventional methods.
Kevin Kemball, Business Development Lead, Forestry and Environmental Sustainability & Michael Chae, Business Development Lead – Circular and Clean Technologies at NAIT
Your Strategic Partner in Environmental Remediation
As a leading polytechnic, NAIT partners with industry in all that it does. Through our applied research, we help partners develop solutions for industry challenges, adopt new technologies, develop and test new products, provide workforce training for productivity and improve business practices. The NAIT Applied Research team has a proven-track record of advancing technologies that provide innovative remediation solutions. Leveraging partnerships with industry and academic partners, the NAIT Applied Research team has developed novel remediation technologies, including a “lignochar” for treating contaminated soils, plant-mediated dewatering of tailings ponds, and development and deployment of an electrokinetic system to remediate salt-impacted soils. Through a multi-disciplinary approach that is facilitated by expertise in diverse research centres, NAIT Applied Research delivers solutions to complex environmental challenges that address critical needs of Alberta’s natural resources sector.
Ravil Ibatullin, Chief Technological Officer at URSA Cleantech Ltd.
Microbial Technology to Reduce Methane Emissions in Oil and Gas Wells
Microbiology has a wide range of applications in the oil industry, from exploration to soil remediation. Compared to many conventional methods, microbiological techniques have a lower cost, require less complex implementation and are environmentally friendly.
Oil and gas reservoirs, including soil, are an exceptional habitat for microorganisms. Thus, each gram of soil can contain up to 10 billion bacterial cells. Specific bacteria act as a biofilter and can oxidize methane preventing over 90% of methane entering the atmosphere.
Conversion of methane into less harmful compounds is a nature-based solution to reduce emissions in oil and gas wells, in particular in producing wells where conventional methods to reduce surface casing or/and casing vent flow are not applicable because of the risk of losing production. The efficiency of microbial methane conversion depends on maintaining optimal conditions for the growth and activity of methanotrophic bacteria downhole and/or around a well.
The presentation will provide a short overview of the state-of-the-art microbiological techniques in the oil industry with the focus on emissions reduction, ongoing research and technology development and potential applications in Western Canada.