Deicing Solutions for the Alberta Oil Industry

Deicing for the Alberta Oil Industry

The Alberta oil industry needed turnkey deicing solutions for several mining infrastructures in a settling pond located in the oil sands region of northern Alberta. In collaboration with our client, their engineering firm and their contractors on the site, we designed a plan and proposed equipment for an industrial de-icing system using Bubble Tubing® .

The Kasco Marine propeller deicers were currently in use for a few structures but a back-up system was required as the propellers of traditional agitators and deicers were often negatively affected by the floating masses of asphaltene that are typically found in post-treatment water from bituminous operations. Bubble Tubing® is an excellent solution for preventing ice formation along floating or fixed structures as well as for creating and maintaining ice-free areas for the movement of boats, dredges and barges. With no moving parts in the water, the deicing system has proven to be the best choice for a reliable and permanent deicing installation that will not be affected by asphaltene, floating debris or even bitumen, a viscous substance that precipitates at the bottom of the settling cells, following the extraction of crude mining oil.

This particular Deicing project for an oil industry required:

Deicing of a 400m x 25m access channel using 40 individual lines of weighted Bubble Tubing®;
Deicing of two dredges and their barges with 8 lines of 60 meters of ballasted Bubble Tubing® to create an open space of 80m x 60m;
Deicing of a 120-meter floating footbridge using four 61-meter lines of ballasted Bubble Tubing®;
Custom designed industrial grade line separators and layout drawings;
On-site supervision during installation and technical support after installation.

Our proposed deicing solutions were selected. We provided the above materials for water de-icing and were on site to provide surveillance at the time of installation in October 2014. Access to service barges and dredges during winter months is now possible with the help of the bubble deicing system.

Bubble Tubing®’s team was on site to organize the management of materials, to train the team on how to install the de-icing equipment on the ground and on the boat (pipes, hardware and line separators) and as well to test the equipment. As part of our relationship with all our customers, Bubble Tubing® remains available at all times for any diagnosis of anomalies and long-term technical support relating to our deicing projects.

We are proud to be able to offer efficient and economical solutions for these major resource and infrastructure projects using Canadian technology and ingenuity!