SAGD Facility Expansion, Engineering and Procurement

A client wishing to triple the capacity of Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) emulsion processing from 20,000 barrels per day (BPD) to 60,000 BPD bitumen engaged Vista to perform the engineering and procurement for the project. Vista’s work centered on expanding the areas of steam generation, oil treating, produced water de-oiling, softening and recycle as well as major utility expansions.

The original plant design made no allowance for expansion, which resulted in significant layout and infrastructure challenges, and highly complex debottleneck engineering. Vista provided an innovative heat recovery system to preheat Once-Through Steam Generator combustion air that has been copied by others in the industry. Due to the layout issues, the equipment was spread out across the entire plant site, and some very innovative hydraulic work was completed, to allow all the equipment to operate together.