Stolt Tankers partners with Stolthaven Terminals on pioneering project to treat wastewater onshore
Stolt Tankers and Stolthaven Terminals have joined forces to pioneer the removal and sustainable treatment of wastewater from ships docked in Houston, according to the company's release.
In June 2021 the two divisions began a pilot programme to identify and balance the challenges, costs and benefits of treating washwater from ships at Stolthaven Houston's onsite wastewater treatment plant.
The facility, which has been operational for more than 20 years, was expanded and modernised in 2018, allowing the terminal to significantly increase its capability to treat third-party waste.
Over the last eighteen months, the Stolt Tankers team, led by Houston Port Operations, and Stolthaven Houston tested different scenarios and developed a calculator to compare the costs of each one. With the help of Stolt-Nielsen's Global Shared Services Centre in Manila, they also built an app to track usage of the treatment facility and a bespoke dashboard to analyse the results.
Over a year of testing, from June 2021 to June 2022, the project reduced the amount of washwater to sea by over 8,000m3 while reducing CO2 emissions by 600 metric tonnes and preventing the burning of over 200 metric tonnes of fuel.
Stolt Tankers is now looking to expand its onshore discharge programme to other ports that have wastewater or water-reclamation facilities.
