GREAT FALLS — Montana Renewables announced on Tuesday plans for an on-site water treatment plant at their Great Falls facility.
When Montana Renewables takes crude oil, it needs to be washed. After washing, the clean oil is separated from the dirty water, and the water is shipped out of state, where it is further processed.
With this new plant, Montana Renewables can do this processing in-house, extracting even more oil from the dirty water, resulting in more product.
Bruce Fleming, CEO of Montana Renewables, said, “It's money out the door and we'd like to keep that in Montana. There's no reason to, you know, pay railroads to move water around the country and to pay somebody else for a permit that we can have here in Montana.”
Montana Renewables hopes to break ground by the end of this year, but says that their loan from the U.S. Department of Energy could result in a later start date.
