Aethon Energy Management, LLC, owns and operates natural gas and oil assets in the Wind River Region of Central Wyoming, including more than 250 active wells. As part of their efforts to field-produce water in a long-term, sustainable fashion, and provide cost-effective disposal, they constructed a 25,000-bbls/day advanced water treatment facility. The facility produces a high-quality water that meets Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality water quality discharge standards. The untreated produced water contains high concentrations of total dissolved solids, petroleum hydrocarbons (including benzene), and other inorganic compounds commonly found in deep aquifers throughout Wyoming. The client selected RETTEW for this project because of our design experience in water reuse and produced water treatment facilities, as well as our practical knowledge of reverse osmosis system operations.

The state-of-the-art wastewater treatment facility includes a series of pretreatment technologies including oil/water separation, filtration, and ion exchange prior to final treatment through a multi-stage reverse osmosis process. The project marks an important advance in pursuing natural gas and oil resource development in an environmentally conscious manner by maximizing opportunities to recycle water. Our team led all regulatory and overall facility design efforts and has been assisting in the active operations and optimization of the facility.