Clean Power Production for the Oil Sands Industry » Babcock & Wilcox

Clean power production technologies

Babcock & Wilcox has served the oil sands industry for many years by providing a wide range of clean power production technologies and aftermarket support services including parts, equipment upgrades and field engineering.

B&W provides a wide range of products and services which meet the unique steam requirements for the oil sands industry. Key features and highlights of our capabilities:

B&W's industrial water-tube boilers are ideally suited for oil sands and other refinery applications. Features of our design meet the specialized needs of steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) and other in situ processes.

For oil sands applications, saturated or superheated steam is generated with minimal required blowdown, increased efficiency, and improved ability to utilize liquid and gaseous fuels, including produced gas, heavy oil and residuals, as well as turbine exhaust gas and HRSG applications.

B&W's industrial boilers can also accept feedwater quality lower than ABMA/ASME limits (sub-ASME) for drum boilers. To do this, B&W's Multi-Circulation technology is used to control boiler circulation so that low solids water is supplied to the high heat flux zones in the boiler and high solids water is supplied to the low heat flux zones—thereby minimizing internal boiler tube deposition. The multi-circulation feature addresses concerns about the effects of sub-ASME quality feedwater on tube deposition by offering a unique design that maximizes thermal efficiency while minimizing the need to clean boiler tubes.

B&W's industrial water-tube boilers are bottom supported, natural circulation designs with modularized construction that maximizes shop assembly and minimizes field erection, thereby providing more project scheduling certainty.

The units are fully drainable, can be designed for either forced or balanced draft operation, and are designed to meet specific steam temperature and pressure requirements within standardized configurations. Superheat can also be added when using the Multi-Circulation option to reduce water loss and improve overall plant efficiency in SAGD or power generation applications.

Units come in pre-engineered frame sizes to accommodate a range of steam conditions and capacity. They are designed to ship in shop-assembled modules within the shipping limitations of the oil sands region for size and weight.

Specifications

B&W can provide a full range of turnaround, field construction, construction management and maintenance services. Our extensive experience with large, complex projects and full-scale retrofits gives us the depth of knowledge necessary to safely construct and complete a successful project of any size at any plant site. Our team includes experts in project management, site supervision and start-up and commissioning.

Our construction personnel collaborate with our boiler design engineers early in a project's development cycle to maximize efficiencies in delivery and installation.

Benefits of B&W's industrial water-tube boilers for the oil sands industry:

B&W can also supply total energy and environmental solutions that include:

Canadian Oil Sands - Alberta, Canada

Eight modular industrial boilers prove to be high-efficiency, high reliability, low-emissions steam generation solution.

Project Challenge

To most effectively, environmentally and reliably harness the naturally occurring petrochemical, the customer required a steam generation solution that provided:

Read the full case study

B&W provides a comprehensive suite of emissions control solutions to reduce a wide range of emissions, including nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx) and other acid gases, particulate matter, mercury, and others. We also provide wastewater reduction solutions for zero liquid discharge objectives. Our well-proven technologies are innovative, reliable, and can be customized to fit most applications.

For more than 150 years, the Babcock & Wilcox name is synonymous with quality steam generation technologies. In fact, we wrote the book on Steam. From the initial patent in 1856 for the world's first inherently safe water-tube boiler to diverse technologies using a wide range of fuels and the latest advanced steam cycles, our robust thermal energy solutions deliver reliability, availability and long-term operation.

Our vast experience includes boilers for utility-scale power plants, industrial scale and package boilers, circulating and bubbling fluidized-bed boilers, recovery boilers for pulp and paper mills, and boilers for renewable energy applications.

We’ve been at the forefront of developing Innovative carbon capture technologies for several decades. Both post-combustion and oxy-combustion technologies are available for existing and new installations. In addition, our BrightLoop™ chemical looping technology is flexible and can be used for a wide range of applications. The process isolates carbon dioxide for storage/sequestration or beneficial use while producing outputs such as hydrogen, steam and/or syngas.

Through our SPIG® product line, we provide an extensive range of turnkey cooling systems. Since 1936, we have designed, engineered and installed more than 10,000 wet cooling tower cells, more than 400 dry cooling systems and more than 35 hybrid systems. Our customized cooling solutions are engineered for a wide range of site-specific and project requirements, including high seismic and wind loads, vibration control, corrosion resistance, low-noise emission, sub-freezing operation, and seawater applications.

Our range of aftermarket services includes engineered component and system upgrades and modifications, replacement parts, field engineering support, and commissioning and start-up services, among many others. We perform this work on equipment regardless of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM).