Veolia has been awarded the contract by Shell Canada to design and supply a water treatment facility to recycle the water used for steam generation at Shell's Carmon Creek heavy oil project in Alberta, Canada.

The Shell Carmon Creek Project, which is currently under construction, will produce up to 80,000 barrels per day of oil using enhanced oil recovery methods, where steam is injected into the underground reservoir to help produce the heavy oil.

The water co-produced with the oil recovered from underground will be treated and re-used to generate steam. This approach maximizes the amount of process water recycled (approximately 99%).

Veolia's engineering and design expertise has produced a treatment system that will allow production of up to 50,000 tons of steam per day - critical to the oil production process. The project will incorporate Veolia’s proprietary water technologies that include the separation of hydrocarbons, warm-lime softening, after filters, ion exchange and evaporation for recovering and recycling of the produced water.

Veolia previously supplied Shell with a sustainable water management solution for its Pearl GTL complex in Qatar that also involved a highly integrated water treatment system aimed at maximum water recovery.

"Veolia is the only solutions provider covering the entire water cycle for the needs of the oil industry" said Antoine Frérot, Chairman and CEO of Veolia Environnement. "Industrial companies know using water efficiently is a key element of production and is an important part of minimizing the environmental impact of their operations and of meeting ever more stringent legislation."