Meridian Energy Group, Inc. issued Final Permit to Construct (PTC) for the Davis Refinery by the North Dakota’s Department of Health – Air Quality Division.
The first full-conversion refinery in history permitted as a Synthetic Minor Source
This marks the first time that a full-conversion refinery of this size and complexity has been reviewed and approved as a Synthetic Minor Source, an accomplishment considered by the Oil and Gas Financial Journal to be “historic”. Vepica acted as the principal engineering consultant to Meridian in the preparation and filing of the refinery’s original and amended PTC application. The original application was filed in October 2016, and later amended in April 2017, to further reduce emissions and potential effects over the surrounding community and the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. One of the most important and key tasks performed by Vepica was the development of the FEL-2 engineering documentation for the 55,000 BPD grassroots conversion refinery to support a New Source Review Air Permit as a Synthetic Minor Source of Air Pollution in accordance with the requirements of the Clean Air Act. These activities included development of conceptual design and pre-feed engineering to support preparation of a thorough emissions inventory, selection of the appropriate air pollution controls (e.g. BACT, MACT, LAER) to ensure minor source emission levels, air emissions dispersion modeling and potential impacts analysis to both Class 1 and Class 2 airsheds, assistance to Meridian during the Public Comment period and preparation of technical responses to the over 10,800 comments received by the State regulatory agency on the draft Permit issued in compliance with state and federal permitting requirements.
Andreina Peña, Environmental Manager at Vepica USA on the overall permit to construct process, “from the beginning Meridian has directed the focus of the engineering for the Davis Refinery to demonstrating that the sustainable development of a project of this magnitude is feasible near the source of the feedstock, in the heart of the Bakken. Meridian firmly believes that doing what is environmentally responsible does not need to be mandated by regulatory requirements, that environmental and commercial viability are not mutually exclusive, and also that selection of the proper control technology, whether or not mandated by current regulations, makes sense from an operations, community, environment and investor point of view. With the issuance of the Permit to Construct, NDDH has further validated that current, proven control technologies, when sensibly implemented, can ensure that a project of this scope can be classified as a minor synthetic source.”
Carlos Garcia, Project Manager at Vepica USA, had this to say on the engineering design of the Davis Refinery: “What makes sustainable developments like Davis possible today are: Advances over the past couple of decades in commercially available burner technology, maximization of heat integration throughout the facility, vapor recovery to minimize flaring events, and last but not least, implementation of state of the art industry technology for leak detection. What wasn’t possible even 10 years ago is now easily attainable and being employed in the Davis Refinery”
Vepica is currently performing the role of Owner Engineers on behalf of Meridian, as the project moves forward to its EPC phase. The decision was based on Vepica’s exceptional performance to date, in engineering and permitting support, the experience of key Vepica personnel with the Davis Refinery and our ability to simultaneously work the project from our three main locations in Houston, Calgary and Caracas, providing efficient and cost competitive solutions.
