By Ian Gilson, CFA

OriginOil (OTC BB:OOIL) has announced the engagement of Clean Water Technology Inc. (NYSE:CWT) (a private company in Los Angeles CA.) to manufacture the oil/water separation units and integrate them into existing equipment in the oil field. OriginOil worked with CWT when the Australian algae harvesting pilot program was scaled up. The units will be used for field validation in Texas later this year.

CWT has a 20 year history of waste water treatment including dissolved air flotation systems and waste water secondary and tertiary treatment using modular systems. Pace Engineering and OriginOil will work together to design and make first units to process up to 60,000 gallons a day. This is a small scale unit as the amount of flowback water produced at a drilling site is well in excess of this amount.

The separation of oil and water from fracking flowback liquids has been validated by PACE Engineering, a civil engineering firm in Fountain Valley, California. The Algae Appliance was able to remove 98% of the organic material in one pass (including crude oil), which is substantially more than the 78% removed by conventional methods. After a third treatment the chemical oxygen demand was reduced and the water clarified.