Envorem’s Green Technology combines more than a decade of research, development and testing. This culminated in a large scale pilot project which proved our technology treats oil contaminated sludges and soil quickly and inexpensively and in a more environmentally responsible and sustainable manner than current approaches. So what’s the next step. Envorem News spoke to the companies chief engineer, Ben Monkton.

Envorem News:  Envorem currently only has one system in operation, so how can the company make a significant environmental impact?

Ben Monkton: Our plan is to upscale operations exponentially. The idea is for Envorem to have a whole fleet of machines out in the field. These could be stationed in countries all across the Middle East and eventually in all oil producing countries. We’re starting with projects in Oman and have a trial project coming up in Kuwait next. We are hoping to start a conversation in Canada soon and a major services company from the US has just reached out to us. 

My job is to keep developing the system and improving the prototype so it can be rolled out everywhere. I'd love for us to get to a stage engineering wise where we've got fleets of plants operating in different countries with our design teams constantly developing the designs to optimise and integrate the technology into the customer’s processes, reducing their costs and helping the environment. For example, we are currently investigating ways of using contaminated produced water and watery sludges to treat highly oil contaminated soil - effectively using one waste stream to clean another.

Envorem News:  That’s a huge undertaking…

Ben Monkton: Yes, Envorem has a colossal vision. Though our team is relatively small in comparison to the task, we are all committed to making it happen. I don't know if you've read Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. He started off with a small dedicated team with ambition, after reading his book I see a lot of parallels between them and the Envorem Team! We may be small right now but have huge ambition. We are probably equivalent to a team twice our size, given our energy and dedication. There’s a great vibe at Envorem and a lot of excitement about what we offer. So, I can see us developing this fleet in years to come. We could also adapt our technology for other forms of clean up, so the sky literally is the limit!

Envorem News:  So how long will it take to build this ‘Envorem fleet’ and how mobile will it be?

Ben Monkton: Each plant can be built in four to five months, however in the current climate it’s more likely to be six to nine months. In terms of lead times in the oil and gas industry, that's quite quick. There’s usually a lead time of 18 to 24 months on equipment.

In terms of mobility, our remediation system is built to fit into 40-foot shipping containers so it can be transported by road or by sea. However, the systems will be on site for substantial amounts of time, so they aren’t going to be moved around that much. We also see opportunities to integrate our technology with current processes, treating the materials at source.

A clean-up project could run upwards of a year depending on the scale of the remediation required. It also depends on whether or not oil is still being extracted at the site. If the site is live, in other words, oil waste is still being pumped into the lagoon, then it will be an ongoing cleaning process which can continue indefinitely.

Our 25-tonne per hour plant will comprise seven 40-foot containers and operate at several times the capacity of any sludge processing technology available today. We have already tested the process running in excess of 50 tonnes per hour and the University of Brighton is currently investigating further scaling of our cavitation and hydraulic shock processes.  Each section is designed to integrate with each other using a  series of hoses, pipes and cables that make up the overall system. Manufacture currently takes place in Stoke on Trent and the equipment shipped out to wherever it’s needed.