MYCELX Wins 99% Permian Basin Oil Recovery Push
MYCELX is moving its permian basin push around a 99% oil-recovery claim from produced water. The company says its MAC and REGEN systems can pull sales-quality oil while collecting suspended solids, then feed water into disposal, reuse, desalination, or evaporation workflows.
Garrett Rasor on 99% recovery
99% sales-quality oil recovery comes from combining the MYCELX Advanced Coalescer and the Regenerative Media Filter, Garrett Rasor said. The business development manager for oil and gas said the paired systems can also collect suspended solids, giving Permian Basin operators a single treatment train for produced water before it reaches saltwater disposal wells or downstream reuse equipment.
11.64 parts per million was the average effluent oil-in-water reading MYCELX recorded in a Delaware Basin pilot with a supermajor operator after three months and 55 days of data collection. The company said the two-stage MAC and REGEN system received produced fluids from the pipeline and exceeded the less-than-15-parts-per-million oil-and-grease specification.
November project in the Permian Basin
November brought MYCELX its first field-scale REGEN project in the Permian Basin, awarded by a major midstream operator. Jim Weidler said “it will begin operations in the third or fourth quarter,” and he also called the project “the company’s showcase.”
Third or fourth quarter start-up gives operators a near-term test of whether the system can move from pilot results to field operations at scale. MYCELX says the tools are automated, require no chemicals, produce no emissions and operate within a small footprint, which makes the roll-out more than a lab exercise.
1989 spill to 1994 company
1989 is where the technology story begins, with the Exxon Valdez oil spill leading to the polymer that became MYCELX’s water treatment system. Hal Alper later developed the polymer, which permanently and chemically bonds hydrocarbons on contact rather than simply filtering them.
1994 is when Alper and petroleum industry veteran John Mansfield Sr. co-founded MYCELX Technologies. The company now says it has global produced-water treatment experience across onshore and offshore operations, and it hopes to offer PFAS treatment technology to the permian basin in the future.
