Environmental Protection

The implementation of environmental measures is checked as part of the QHSE audits and site inspections (e.g. compliance with legal or internal regulations and limits, prevention of emissions, waste disposal).

This annual review of the environmental aspects of Buchen’s activities and their evaluation using the ABC method confirms continuing improvement in our environmental protection ef-forts.

Ground Water Well in Cologne Premises

The extraction of service water the well at our Cologne premises has led to a 44% reduction in the consumption of potable water in the first half of 2006. Figures for the second half of 2006 will only be available in July 2007.

Newly developed Decanter deployed by FILTRATEC for First Time

Our subsidiary, FILTRATEC Mobile Schlammentwässerung GmbH, has successfully de-ployed the newly developed gastight three-phase decanter in a refinery at Lingen. The de-velopment was partly financed by the German Ministry of the Environment.

Huge amounts of waste process water is produced when processing crude oil which are then stored in tanks if the capacity of the refinery’s own treatment plants or decanter units cannot cope.

The three-phase decanter separates the solid phase and the two liquid phases with differing specific gravities (e.g. solids, oil and water) in a single work process.

The benefits of the newly developed three-phase decanter come to the fore in these situa-tions: the environmentally friendly unit prevents carcinogenic emissions escaping into the atmosphere and reduces the danger of explosion at the same time.

In contrast to conventional three-phase decanter, FILTRATEC’s mobile gas-tight unit is a closed circuit system in accordance with ATEX guidelines. Before emptying the tanks the entire treatment unit is filled with inert Nitrogen gas. This ensures that the entire unit is isolated preventing harmful substances escaping and also preventing explosions. Explosions are a real hazard in conventional processing of oil mixtures because flammable vapours are formed with flash points of below 21°C. By excluding any oxygen from the FILTRATEC de-canter explosions can be prevented.

By inertising it with nitrogen, the liquid mixture can be heated to far above its flashpoint and safely processed, even for liquids with a flashpoint of below 21°C (normal room temperature).

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