Challenge

The petroleum refinery of  Navajo Refining Company, L.P., in Artesia, N.M., located on a 400-acre site in the petroleum-rich Permian Basin, recently completed an $85 million expansion and upgrade that expanded its processing capability from 60,000 barrels a day to 75,000 barrels a day. In addition, it upgraded the water treatment equipment to improve the quality of boiler feed water as well as wastewater from the facility.

The upgrade of the wastewater treatment systems will help Navajo Refining meet two U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations under the Clean Air Act: low-sulfur (clean fuels) emissions standards and New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) - Subpart QQQ for wastewater treatment for petroleum refineries

Solution

Siemens worked with the Houston office of engineering consultants CH2M Hill to come up with the options for the final plan that was implemented to meet the decree's requirements.

 "CH2M Hill presented a number of options that would allow us to upgrade to NSPS Subpart QQQ standards in a reasonable amount of time and at an affordable cost,” says Navajo Refining’s Don Whaley, environmental manager at the Artesia refinery.

Results

Navajo replaced its two in-ground API separators with two above-ground, steel tank API separators from Siemens Water Technologies.  Navajo’s old API separators were not covered because they pre-dated NSPS Subpart QQQ and care was taken not to trigger QQQ through subsequent projects.

The new larger capacity above-ground API separators allowed Navajo to remove from service another uncovered separator upstream of the wastewater treatment facilities.  This provided a further emissions reduction and operational benefits.

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