Water and oil don’t mix, but they do work together at the Co-op Refinery Complex (CRC), thanks to a new wastewater treatment facility at the refinery.

The refinery requires an enormous amount of water to function. Water is used by the CRC to warm pipes, to drive turbines and to assist in chemical processes. It also cools process units. The refinery even runs its own firefighting equipment.

But water, as we all know, is a scarce resource in Saskatchewan. Both Regina’s and Saskatchewan’s water use has climbed steadily over the years. The city’s growing population and the increased use of water in the resource sector have combined to put Regina’s water supply under ever-increasing pressure.
“The turning point for us was the Section V expansion. Even before it was complete, we knew we were going to need significantly more water to operate,” says utilities engineer John Hilts, P.Eng.
Although the refinery had enough water to continue to operate even after the expansion, the company’s leadership anticipated that a more innovative solution would be needed down the road as outside sources came under more pressure.

The provincial Water Security Agency (WSA) tightly regulates Saskatchewan’s water resource and sets strict quotas for industrial and resource sector users. As its use continued to grow, the CRC was faced with the prospect of bumping up against those quotas. The amount of fresh water needed from the City of Regina’s source would have climbed higher than what CRC was allowed by the WSA.

“We were using all the water from on-site wells and supplementing this with City of Regina water. We needed to develop a more sustainable way to meet our water needs,” says Gil Le Dressay, P.Eng., vice-president of operations at CRC.

To meet this need, recycled water will be used more often. To achieve this, the CRC launched its ambitious Wastewater Improvement Project (WIP). Although it has garnered little media attention, at a price tag of over $200 million, this cutting-edge environmental initiative is one of the largest megaprojects under way in Saskatchewan.

“This is really leading-edge technology. We have faced challenges along the way, which is natural because it has been a learning process for everyone involved. The sheer scale of the project has created challenges in juggling all of the contractors involved,” says the operations superintendent, Jack Holizki.
“But we are getting there. We are still in start up mode. We are slowly commissioning and phasing into a full start. The big payoff will be when it is fully functional,” Holizki adds.

“The Wastewater Improvement Project, when fully operational, will allow the refinery to recycle up to 65 per cent of its waste water,” says Le Dressay. “We are the first refinery in North America to recycle so much of our waste water for reuse in the oil refining processes.”

The CRC’s wastewater treatment plant will recycle its waste water using biological technology that can treat the process water more effectively than previous solutions. In the past, the water would have been manually treated to separate oil and solids from the water. Then the City of Regina would have to further treat the refinery waste water at its own treatment plant.

By recycling, the CRC has made impressive strides in reducing its fresh water use. Even though the Section V expansion has increased water use by 30 per cent, the WIP will cut the refinery’s fresh water use by roughly 28 per cent. That’s the equivalent of the water used by 3,100 households.

Not only will the WIP reduce CRC’s water use but it will also deliver a host of other environmental benefits.
“We have four major objectives in this project. First, we want to reduce our general well water use. Then we want to improve the quality of the waste water we produce. Third, we want to reduce the quantity of waste water sent to the city. Finally, we want to improve the air emissions from the water treatment process,” says Hilts.