Envirosystems Inc

ENVIROSYSTEMS

CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGIES FOR ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY INDUSTRY

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FOCUSED ON INNOVATION AND PRODUCTIVITY Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Envirosystems Inc.’s Roy Baker, Director of Environmental Services at the Newfoundland and Labrador Division, Dave Warren, General Manager at the Newfoundland and Labrador Division, and Scott Sangster, Senior Vice President for Health, Safety, Environment, Quality, and People Services, about deriving value from waste, employee-driven innovation, and pushing the envelope on safety.

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TO SUPPORT NEWFOUNDLAND’S ENERGY INDUSTRY, ENVIROSYSTEMS IS CURRENTLY CONSTRUCTING A NEW MARINE FACILITY AT PIER 18 WEST, ST. JOHN’S HARBOR.

For over twenty years, Nova Scotia-based Envirosystems Inc. has been helping businesses and governments in North America achieve their industrial and environmental management goals. Operating out of over 40 locations across Canada and the United States, with a workforce of over 1000 people, Envirosystems is able to offer clients the resources of a big firm alongside the expertise of a local company through a business model emphasizing organic growth and by acquiring smaller regional companies.

In 2011, Envirosystems acquired Crosbie Industrial Services Ltd and Newfoundland Environmental Services Ltd, both based in Newfoundland and Labrador. With facilities

in St. John’s, Come By Chance, and Pasadena, Envirosystems delivers industrial and environmental services to the whole province.

“Our vision is to provide superior solutions, customer service, and value,” explains Dave Warren, General Manager at the Newfoundland and Labrador Division. “We focus on innovation and productivity to reduce total costs for our customers.”

MARINE FACILITY To support Newfoundland’s energy industry, Envirosystems is currently constructing a new marine facility at Pier 18 West, St. John’s Harbor. “It’s a turnkey solution we’re offering to the offshore oil and gas

operators,” explains Roy Baker, Director of Environmental Services at the Newfoundland and Labrador Division. “It’ll be kind of a one-stop shop for them.”

“It’ll offer vessel offloading of bulk fluids, waste transfers and handling, fluids loading, and robotic vessel tank cleaning,” says Mr. Warren. “Basically, it’s a full service deal for the industry. It’s going to provide a quicker turnaround time for vessels, as well as cut down on entries into confined spaces with our labor force.”

“The oil and gas operators are keen to find better ways to manage waste activities and also to reduce any risk of injury or incidents,” says Mr. Baker. “This new

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facility will be perfectly aligned with those expectations. The timing couldn’t be better to bring efficiencies and stability to the local industry.”

INVESTING IN INNOVATION Envirosystems’ R&D department, referred to within the company as the Innovations Team, is currently working on 26 different projects, with several in the early stages of first commercial activity. But good ideas don’t only emerge from one place. The Envirosystems web portal, Bright Ideas, allows any employee to submit an idea for review. “Many of the ideas we’re currently tracking have come through that portal,” says Mr. Baker. “We believe this goes handin-hand with our goals of efficiency, safety, and sustainability.”

One notable new technology is Envirosystems’ Waste Drilling Mud and Cuttings Treatment System. “For some time, oil and gas operators have been looking for innova-

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tive ways to recycle and reuse drilling waste,” explains Mr. Baker. “Our new technology provides complete onsite treatment using indirect thermal desorption, which also allows us to recover hydrocarbons from the drill waste for beneficial reuse. Currently, the process is to shift all the drilling muds off-island, travelling long distances into other provinces.

This project will reduce transportation associated with drill mud disposal by 90%.”

TREATING CAUSTIC Another new technology developed by Envirosystems is the Ozone Ultrasonic Treatment (O.U.T.™) system. “Refineries generate caustic waste streams which contain very high amounts of hydrogen sulfides, organic disulfides, phenolics, mercaptans, and other hydrocarbons, which are very difficult to treat,” says Mr. Baker. “The O.U.T.™ system makes treatment of those streams safe, efficient, cost-effective, and mobile. We commissioned that for the very first time

here in Newfoundland, and under our trial project we treated in excess of 300,000 liters of spent caustic.”

The system operates at ambient temperatures and pressures, converting hazardous waste into benign water which is ready for discharge. “It basically uses an advanced oxidation process to achieve very high levels of efficiency,” says Mr. Baker. “One of the key benefits of this system is its mobility. Spent caustic waste can be treated onsite or offsite, wherever the customer prefers.” As with Envirosystems’ Waste Drilling Mud and Cuttings Treatment system, customers no longer have to ship caustic waste long distances to specialized facilities for disposal, saving on shipping costs and vastly reducing the risk of an environmentally-damaging incident.

CATALYST FOR CHANGE Envirosystems’ new Matta-Lift™ technology applies a new approach to the catalyst

change-out process at refineries. The traditional method is to use a crane to lift a container of catalyst to the top of a reactor to load it. “This method can encounter significant down time due to inclement weather,” explains Mr. Warren. “The Matta-Lift™, on the other hand, is an elevator system. It’s totally enclosed, with a conveyor, so weather doesn’t affect our ability to operate at all.

The elevator transports the catalyst containers to the top of the reactor and offloads the catalyst via the conveyor.”

“For many years, the slowest point or weakest link in the process of catalyst exchange has been lifting the catalyst to the top of the reactors a hundred feet or more,” says Mr. Baker. “This new technology is substantially more efficient.”

“We just started a side-by-side turnaround using the Matta-Lift™ alongside the traditional way,” says Mr. Warren. “The Matta-Lift™ outperformed the traditional method hands down. It’s the first technology like it in the world. You limit anything over your head swinging from a crane, and you haven’t got wind effects that could jeopardize the health and safety of individ-

uals standing on the reactor. It’s revolutionizing the whole process, both in terms of efficiency and safety.”

CONTROLLING SLUDGE The Envirosystems Extractor™ is another piece of equipment developed in-house.

A maintenance tool to help control sludge build-ups in petroleum storage tanks, the

Extractor™ offers the unique capability to desludge storage tanks while they are still in operation. “Typically, you have to shut down a tank, blind it out, and put men and equipment inside the tank to clean it,” says Mr. Warren. “That can take days. The Envirosystems Extractor™ reduces that time to hours.

We can attach the system to a flange on the tank, slurry the materials, and extract the

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“OUR TECHNOLOGIES ARE BASED ON A WASTE-TO-RESOURCE MODEL, WHERE WE TREAT THE WASTE OF ONE INDUSTRY TO SOLVE THE RESOURCE NEEDS OF OTHER INDUSTRIES.”

sludge from the tank. It also improves safety, because we don’t have to do an entry.”

In their operations across Atlantic Canada, Envirosystems recovers more than 15 million liters of used oil every year for use as fuel in an energy recovery system, and they treat more than 50 million liters of wastewater annually. “Our technologies are based on a waste-to-resource model, where we treat the waste of one industry to solve the resource needs of other industries,” says Mr.

Baker. “This creates a loop of sustainability between industries, and lessens the impact on the environment. In the long term, we intend to get to a zero-waste business model, and Envirosystems will continue leading the way towards that goal.”

RECORD OF SAFETY In 2015, Envirosystems employees across North America worked 1.3 million hours with zero lost time injuries, while Canadian

employees recently achieved a total of over 2.4 million hours worked since the last lost time injury. In the Newfoundland and Labrador Division alone, Envirosystems personnel have worked 500,000 hours since the last lost time injury.

“It ultimately comes down to our employees and the safety culture we have established,” says Scott Sangster, Senior Vice President for Health, Safety, Environment, Quality, and People Services at

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Envirosystems Inc. “We took a slow and steady approach to the development and implementation of our Safety Management System, which we started back in 2010, and which really is still ongoing. It was extremely important to us that our management teams were involved in the development process through consultation, participation, and buy-in.”

Though Envirosystems’ safety statistics are enviable, they’re always striving to

improve. “Inevitably incidents do happen from time to time, and when they do, we do not shy away from them,” says Mr. Sangster. “We have a well-defined incident management process in which all incidents, including near misses, must be investigated to find the root cause and identify corrective actions to ensure that incident does not happen again. Anytime we have an incident that could be repeated at another Envirosystems location or operation, we utilize our safety alert process so that all our employees can learn from those events and management can make the necessary changes elsewhere.”

Of course Envirosystems’ technology provides safety benefits not only for employees but also for clients. “Ultimately, one of our roles is to make the work our customers do safer,” explains Mr. Warren. “Some of the work that was traditionally done manually is being automated. Wherever possible we are working towards automation.”

NEW OPPORTUNITIES Envirosystems recently received approval from Environmental Assessment to temporarily store and clean low level Naturally

Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) waste and equipment and treat wash-water at their Akerley Facility in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. This facility will be the first in Eastern Canada permitted to receive and decontaminate NORM, which previously had to be shipped long distances to Western Canada. “NORM originating from offshore oil and gas operations is usually brought to the surface in produced water,” says Mr. Baker. “As the water approaches the surface, temperature changes cause NORM to precipitate as scale onto equipment.

We’re very excited about this new approval, and we look forward to bringing another solution to our customers.”

In response to the current market pressures on the oil and gas sector, Envirosystems is investing in technologies which will help reduce the cost of operations for their client base. “Our customers are very cost-conscious right now, and we’ve embraced that,” says Mr. Warren. “We’re finding better ways of delivering our services, and improving the cost structure. We want to assist our clients going forward, and make it easy for them to do business with us.” c

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Envirosystems 11 Brown Avenue, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Canada, B3B 1Z7 T.: +1 902 481 8008 www.envirosystemsglobal.com

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