Tüpraş Achieved Water Savings Equivalent To Annual Water Consumption Of A City With 2.5 Million People In The Last Five Years, Thanks To Its Water Recovery Investments
Tüpraş achieved water savings equivalent to annual water consumption of a city with 2.5 million people in the last five years, thanks to its water recovery investments
Meeting a significant part of energy requirements of Turkey and contributing to sustainable economy based on its national responsibility approach, Tüpraş uninterruptedly continues on its works in water efficiency.
Sharing his opinions on water efficiency, İbrahim Yelmenoğlu, General Manager of Tüpraş, said, “We adopt sustainability based production approach with by being conscious of our responsibilities for our society and the environment while producing the energy of Turkey. We pay a special attention to the use of water, which is vitally important for life, by acting with the vision of contributing to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We focus on water efficiency and wastewater recovery projects in our refineries and ensure the water is recovered and reused. We have recovered and reused 102 million cubic meters of water in the last five years in all our refineries. We reduced the amount of raw water consumption per crude oil that we processed by 23 percent; in other words, we saved an equivalent of an annual water consumption of a city with 2.5 million people in the last five years. As a company valuing each drop of water, we do not extract water from Sapanca Lake for industrial purposes in our Izmit Refinery unless an extraordinary situation occurs; and we recover and reuse wastewater in the maximum amount in our wastewater unit.”
Water Management in Tüpraş
Tüpraş has adopted the principle of using water, a limited source of life, with maximum efficiency and reducing fresh water consumption and wastewater by means of its recovery processes.
The company implemented “The Project for Recovery of Urban Wastewater of Municipality for Use as Process Water in Industry” that aims to recover “Discharged Water of ISU Körfez Household Wastewater Recovery plant” with advanced technologies, in 2014. The company now manages to meet 97 percent of its water requirements for production operations of İzmit Refinery from recovered wastewater. On the other hand, the company reached a refinery wastewater recovery ratio of 73 percent in its Izmir Refinery, thanks to “Wastewater Recovery and Water Preparation Unit”, commissioned in 2016.
With its water management model, Tüpraş ranks among the refineries that use water per crude oil within the reference ranges in the “Best Available Techniques - BAT” certificate, which is valid in European Union, in parallel with good practices of the industry.
Awarded Projects
Wastewater Recovery Unit in Izmit Refinery of Tüpraş is crowned with awards given in national and international platforms.
Izmit Refinery of Tüpraş got to the finals and represented our country with “The Project for Recovery of Urban Wastewater of Municipality for Use as Process Water in Industry” in Turkey Program of European Union (EU) Environment Awards in 2016. Tüpraş developed this technology as a result of research studies and feasibility works performed for recovery of urban wastewater in a way to be used for refineries. By integrating this technology to its practices the company led the way for local authorities and the refinery industry.
The same project was also selected as the champion of the year in “Water Management” category of Sustainable Business Awards in 2018, while achieving the second place in Environment Awards of Istanbul Chamber of Industry.