Case Histories

Case Histories

Api – The Falconara Marittima Refinery

#RICCOBONI
Full-Service Environmental Solutions
From 2001 to 2006, and again from 2009 to 2012, Riccoboni SpA handled the operational and administrative management of the Api refinery in Falconara Marittima (Ancona) as well as relations with local communities with regard to internal environmental issues at the refinery—a 700 thousand sqm centre of industrial activity capable of processing 85 million barrels of crude per day and a strategic hub for the supply of petroleum products in the entire central-eastern area of the Italian peninsula.

Once Riccoboni had been entrusted with providing the facility with Full-Service Environmental Solution services, it took over responsibility for a number of ordinary administrative tasks, as well as operational coordination and management in the field, including:

  • the phase separation of semi-processed oil-refinery products through centrifugation, in order to recover the liquid fraction (bittern) and to solidify/stabilise the solid fraction (centrifuged cake);
  • the solidification/stabilisation treatment of special refinery wastes characterised by the presence of mineral oil and contained in drums;
  • the collection, handling, packing in big-bags and preliminary storage of the waste product known as “IGCC filter cakes”; managing the waste’s subsequent recovery, for the purpose of deriving benefit from the vanadium present in the filter cakes, and the handling of cross-border paperwork for the waste product;
  • preliminary storage of the special waste produced at the Api industrial complex, sorting and repacking (in authorised areas), and subsequent disposal/recovery at authorised external plants;
  • selective collection of the waste produced at the Api Falconara Marittima industrial complex, waste handling within the facility and consignment to internal treatment and storage systems;
  • administrative management on behalf of the refinery, Api Raffineria di Ancona S.p.A., of all of the special waste products produced at the refinery, including those to be sent directly to external waste disposal and/or recovery plants;
  • regularly scheduled cleaning and disposal of bottom sludge from: tanks V3, V4 and V5; the preliminary waste collection tank; and the refinery effluents treatment system;
  • gmanagement of waste samples to be sent for analytical testing;
  • transportation, disposal and/or recovery at facilities authorised in accordance with Italian Legislative Decree 152/06.

Before Riccoboni SpA was brought on, the customer had entrusted the plant’s waste management to different third-party companies under specific contracts; however, there was no single agent attending to their waste issues as a whole. The new management system introduced by Riccoboni improved management efficiency and grew into a process that has now been adopted by the majority of active oil refineries in Italy.

For the same customer, at the same refinery in Falconara Marittima, Riccoboni SpA also performed on-site groundwater treatment using mobile systems, as part of activities to make safe and remediate the groundwater via well points; it also conducted reclamation of semi-processed production waste by means of volumetric reduction and centrifugation to recover a portion of the hydrocarbon phase, with subsequent product stabilisation treatment.