Press Releases
OriginClear’s Progressive Water Treatment Starts Up $1+ Million Installation for Texas Refinery
Massively combining three functions on one Reverse Osmosis system makes for company’s largest single unit to date
Los Angeles and Dallas –OriginClear Inc. (OTC/QB: OOIL), a leading provider of water treatment solutions, today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Dallas-based Progressive Water Treatment Inc. (PWT), has commissioned, or put into operation, a 750 gallon per minute (GPM) ) Multiple Media Filtration, Softener and Reverse Osmosis (RO) system for a 75,000 barrel-per-day refinery operated by Delek Refining in Tyler, Texas.
Valued at more than $1 million, paid before the OriginClear acquisition, the water processing system is PWT’s largest single unit to date, and includes advanced process technologies that are new to the refinery and its operators.
“I wanted to personally congratulate Progressive Water Treatment for a well-executed project from design, fabrication, construction support and start-up,” said Randall Goodspeed, Manager of Capital Projects for Delek’s Tyler refinery. “The self-imposed delay between delivery and installation/startup made this project particularly challenging. Both Delek and PWT had concerns with long term storage of a unit of this type which were proven to be unfounded. The smooth start-up, and the support since, have placed PWT in a position as a top supplier to Delek. We look forward to working with PWT in maintaining this relationship for many years to come.”
PWT engineers designed an RO skid that is physically the largest single piece of equipment the company has ever built. PWT responded to the client’s request to combine all three RO units onto one common frame. At the time it was shipped, it required a special extra-wide, extra-high convoy.
The new system replaces a water softening system that has been in service for more than 30 years. It treats boiler feed water by removing suspended solids and dissolved particles, creating steam for refinery processes. Research shows that upgrading wastewater systems to new technology can both reduce operating costs, and have the potential to dramatically reduce industry CO2 emissions, with a positive effect on climate change.
“This project has been filled with challenges, as well as rewards,” said Marc Stevens, president of PWT. “Our team really stepped up to produce some world class equipment and now have it producing high quality water under some extremely difficult circumstances in a very tight window of time.”
PWT built and delivered the unit in a previous year, receiving 85% of the funds in 2014. The client decided to delay startup and requested that the media and membranes not be installed until mid-2015. A final payment of 15% was received in September, and commissioning was completed in the current quarter with no additional cash.
“Progressive Water Treatment continues to impress us. We know we made the right decision in making PWT our first acquisition of the OriginClear Group,” stated Bill Charneski, OriginClear Group President. “At this rate, the OriginClear Group could become a formidable supplier of a full range of technologies to the wide industrial water treatment market within the year.”
“Although there are many large and resourceful companies in the water treatment market, service often goes down as size goes up. Companies like PWT are highly responsive,” said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginClear’s Chief Executive Officer. “With that in mind, we decided to assemble a group of entrepreneurial water treatment companies whose focus is on high quality, performance and customer care. With such a dream team, outsourcing customers can expect advanced specialization, high responsiveness, and shared solutions.”
With this and other recent projects, PWT believes it will achieve about $5 million of revenue for work completed in 2015, with orders exceeding $6.5 million.
“We are very pleased with PWT’s 2015 orders, setting up expectations for a great 2016 for revenue,” commented Riggs Eckelberry.
In its paper, “Powering the Wastewater Renaissance”, Xylem Inc. recently stated, “In the United States and Europe, financing implementation of these technologies to unlock energy efficiency improvements would decrease operating costs and could even unlock new sources of capital to support the badly needed renewal of wastewater infrastructure.”