Design Review

Design Review

AquAeTer was retained by HOVENSA, a joint venture between Amerada Hess and Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), to conduct a design review of a proposed new activated sludge facility. HOVENSA operates a world-class merchant refinery in St Croix, USVI. The facility is one of the most modern refineries in the United States and, with crude oil processing capacity of 495,000 barrels per day (BPD), is one of the largest in the world. The proposed activated sludge facility will replace multiple existing wastewater treatment facilities (WWTFs) with a central WWTF that will service the entire 2,000 acre refinery. AquAeTer also assessed the WWTF design performance capacity for meeting future plant expansions as well as anticipated changes to effluent limitations.

AquAeTer provided the following services to its client for this sampling and reporting project:

  • Confirmation of process design capacity with the Eckenfelder Model for each of the units of the design
  • Analysis of the expected effluent quality for the WWTF to meet water-quality based effluent limits of pending regulations on Total Nitrogen (TN) including organic nitrogen, ammonia, and nitrate
  • Recommendations for additional design additions for extra units to ensure that the design objectives would be met
  • Estimated the total nitrogen effluent quality with the recommended design
  • Recommendations of capacity for the new design to handle increased loadings from future plant expansions