Leading Oil Refinery Ensures Cost-Effective Environmental Compliance with 5 x 8 Oil Grabber

The Montana Refining Company is a sophisticated, 10,000-barrel a day crude oil refiner capable of producing gasoline, jet fuel, or even asphalt, and, like most large-scale high capacity plants, requires process optimization and advanced process controls.

Stephen Kind, who has been a Reliability Engineer at the Montana Refining Company for 18 years, says the company's number one goal is "to produce fuels as economical and environmentally friendly as possible."

How to Recapture 100% Hydrocarbon

Kind needed to find a method for capturing and transferring oil from water in the plant sewers before sending it to the municipal wastewater facility that would replace their current manual process. In researching water/oil remediation technology he found Abanaki Incorporated, an Ohio-based company that specializes in oil removing technology.

Stephen Kind chose the Abanaki Model MB 5 x 8 Oil Grabber System because of its ability to remove large amounts of hydrocarbons with no water pickup.

"We recapture 100 percent of all hydrocarbons that go down our drains," Kind said. "The sewer systems of the refinery go to a collection pit where we have the skimmer mounted. The skimmer collects the hydrocarbons and they are sent back to our crude tank."

The skimmer is left on 24/7. If the refinery can't transfer the oil for some reason they open a by-pass valve and the oil returns to the pit until the secondary containment pit can be pumped. The skimmer requires very little oversight, requires no maintenance, and the time saved more than offsets the electrical costs.

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