Thirty-plus years across oil and gas, heavy civil, industrial, dredging, and municipal work. Odds are we've already met a stream like yours.
Specialized applications
When the problem does not fit a catalog, S3S builds what does.
A waste stream nobody has separated before. A site no rental can handle. A first-of-a-kind job. Stage 3 Separation (S3S) engineers and fabricates the system around your problem, in our own shop. When it doesn't exist yet, we build it ourselves, backed by 7,500+ projects across five verticals.
Why teams bring us the hard ones
Thirty years of first-of-a-kind jobs.
A specialized job isn't a gamble when you've solved thousands of separation problems already. We size the system to your stream, build what the shelf doesn't carry, and prove the result.
Our engineers can design, fabricate, and field a one-of-a-kind system in two to three months, and it runs right the first time.
The same platform crosses industries, so a solution proven on one waste stream carries into the next unusual one.
Ready equipment staged across North America means once the system is built, we can be rigged up and processing inside a day.
How a custom job works
Survey the site. Build what it needs. Run it.
Tell us what you're working with: the slurry, the volume, the site, and what you need back. From there it's on us. We don't force a stock package onto a problem it wasn't made for.
01
Scope and survey
Engineers survey the site and characterize the stream, then model the layout in 3-D so the system fits before anything is built. Lab work sets the chemistry and the target output.
02
Fabricate in-house
We build job-specific components in our own shop, taking a shaker, a centrifuge, or a screen and engineering a purpose-built platform and system around it. We can also integrate equipment you already own.
03
Rig up, run, and prove it
Our crew mobilizes the system, tunes it on location, and stays until the last load. You get clean water, dry solids, and the sampling and volume data to prove what left your site.
Our advantage
When it doesn't exist yet,
we build it ourselves.
Most competitors sell what's on the shelf. S3S owns an in-house engineering and fabrication team, so a first-of-a-kind stream gets a purpose-built answer instead of a compromise.
We're not a rental yard. We engineer the system around your job, put our own people on it, and stay until the last load. The lowest bid isn't where we compete. Total project cost is.
One-of-a-kind builds, proven fast
Our team designs, fabricates, and fields purpose-built systems in two to three months, some with no equivalent anywhere. And they tend to run right the first time on site.
Modular, so it scales to the stream
Our systems aren't one fixed widget. They're a set of modules assembled to fit your volume, so we add units for a big flow or scale down for a small one.
One crew owns the whole job
Engineering, lab testing, fabrication, mobilization, field operators, and monitoring come through one team, not a stack of vendors. Nobody hands you off.
Purpose-built, from survey to running system
01
Site surveyed and modeled in 3-D before anything is built
02
Purpose-built platform fabricated in-house around the equipment
03
System mobilized and running on the specialized site
The work we take on
The catch-all for non-standard separation.
If it's a slurry, a sludge, or a fluid waste that an off-the-shelf rental can't handle, it lands here. The stream changes; the model stays the same. Characterize it, engineer the train, build what's missing, run it on site, and prove the result.
Novel and unusual waste streams
New process byproducts, mixed or contaminated slurries, and waste nobody has separated before. We characterize the stream in the lab, design the chemistry and mechanical train around it, and build the parts that don't exist yet.
- Input
- Novel, mixed, or first-of-a-kind slurries
- Approach
- Lab characterization plus custom fabrication
- Best fit
- Problems no standard package solves
- S3S role
- Design, build, run, and prove
We show up.
We separate.
Even when it's never been done.
Proof from the field ↓
Dredged a refinery pond, start to finish
On a working refinery site, S3S dewatered an entire industrial pond, returned clean water, and hauled off dry, stackable solids. A first-of-its-kind job for the crew, and it ran clean.
Industrial pond dewatering
550 tons off a biosolids lagoon
S3S de-sludged anaerobic sewage lagoons untouched for decades on a closed clear-water loop. The sludge came out as 550 tons of dry, stackable solids that passed every paint-filter test, and clean water went back to the lagoon.
Biosolids lagoon remediation
One-of-a-kind systems, built and running in months
Our engineers routinely take a shaker or centrifuge and build a purpose-built platform around it, some with no equivalent anywhere. We design it, fabricate it, and have it on site in two to three months, and it works the first time.
In-house engineering and fabrication
Equipment that doesn't quit mid-job
Every machine runs with vibration sensors and remote monitoring, and crews service on a fixed schedule. If a unit drifts out of spec, we swap it before it costs you a day. On a specialized job, reliability is the whole game.
North American field operations
Energy
Drilling and completions solids control and fluid management, from a single rig to a whole basin. The standard oil and gas lane. If your job clearly belongs to one industry, start there. If it doesn't fit any of them, that's exactly what this page is for: bring it to our engineering team.
Talk to an engineer→Common questions
Custom separation, answered
That is exactly what this work is for. Stage 3 Separation (S3S) characterizes the stream in the lab, engineers the train around it, and fabricates any components that don't exist yet in our own shop. Across 7,500+ projects in five verticals, we've usually met a stream like yours.
Both. We fabricate job-specific components in-house, building a purpose-built platform and system around a shaker, centrifuge, or screen. Some are one-of-a-kind with no equivalent anywhere. We survey the site, model it in 3-D, and can also integrate equipment you already own.
Our engineers can design, fabricate, and field a purpose-built system in about two to three months. Because the design work and lab testing happen up front, these complex builds tend to run right the first time on site rather than needing rounds of rework.
Anything that doesn't fit a single standard industry: novel or first-of-a-kind streams, geothermal, carbon capture, power generation, mining and tailings, food and agriculture, sand recovery, disaster-relief and storm waste, and one-off remediation. If it's a slurry, sludge, or fluid waste an off-the-shelf rental can't handle, it belongs here.
Our systems are modular, so we add units for higher volume or scale down for less. To be candid, very short or very small jobs can be outweighed by mobilization and trucking costs, and a well-capitalized project with real, sustained volume is the best fit. Share the scope and we'll give you a straight assessment.
Yes. Closed-loop, zero-discharge work is core to what we do. We recover and reuse water and base fluid on site so little or no liquid waste leaves, and solids come out dry enough to haul to a standard landfill. On specialized sites, we build the containment and chemistry around what's actually in the stream.
If it doesn't exist yet,
we build it ourselves.
S3S turns first-of-a-kind and non-standard waste streams into clean, reusable water and dry, stackable solids, with a system engineered and fabricated around your exact problem.
In-house engineering, custom fabrication, modular systems, and one crew that owns the whole job, from the first survey to the last haul-off.
Novel streams, geothermal, carbon capture, mining, sand recovery, disaster relief, and remediation. Backed by 7,500+ projects across North America.