SHARJAH, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, FEB 4, 2019 – In 2017, Aquatech International was awarded a contract by international oil and gas services company Petrofac to design, engineer and supply Source Water Treatment Package for Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) as part of the Lower Fars Heavy Oil Development Project, Phase One.
Now well underway, the project represents a benchmark in sustainable water management. The solution developed by Aquatech is the first to use municipal wastewater RO reject to feed boilers located 120km away, while also providing significant cost reductions to the client.
In recent years, KOC has intensified its effort to extract heavy oil. This process requires the generation of steam, and the water used for this must meet specific quality standards. For the Lower Fars Heavy Oil Project, KOC will use the complex UF / RO reject wastewater from the Sulaibiya Waste Water Treatment and Reclamation Plant (SWWT & RP) for the steam generation process. The Source Water Treatment package supplied by Aquatech will treat this complex wastewater and produce water with higher quality than that required for OTSG boiler for steam generation.
The Source Water Treatment Package supplied by Aquatech brings a number of benefits to the project, primarily the company's vast operational experience in large wastewater reuse plants. This perspective will ensure consistent production of high-quality water for steam generation enabling the Lower Fars Heavy Oil Project to continue running at optimal capacity. The package provides higher availability and reliability, and significant operational cost savings. From an environmental and economic perspective, this sustainable solution significantly reduces the demand on local water supplies.
"Aquatech is proud of our participation in this massive project, which is a landmark undertaking in the Middle East. Our deep experience in the oil and gas industry and a sophisticated array of technologies have enabled us to meet the project's stringent requirements. Our suite of solutions also allows us to provide the requisite high water quality, while reducing operating costs and lowering energy requirements," said Devesh Sharma, Managing Director of Aquatech.
This plant includes a wide variety of advanced technologies including a lime and soda ash silo package, cold lime treatment package, sludge filter press package, media filtration package, UF treatment package, water softening package, RO treatment package, ozonation package, UV treatment package, vacuum deaerator package, RO polishing package and domestic water polishing package.
When it is fully operational, the initial phase of the Lower Fars Heavy Oil Project, which is located in northern Kuwait, is expected to produce approximately 60,000 barrels of oil per day (60 MBOPD). Described as one of the largest and most ambitious upstream projects in the Middle East, it is part of Kuwait's 2020 production goal of 4 million barrels of oil per day, which involves extracting its heavy crude.
Aquatech has been involved in several major projects in the Middle East, including a wastewater recovery plant for Equate Petrochemical Company in Kuwait; one of the world's largest produced water treatment facilities, located in the Mukhaizna oil field in the Sultanate of Oman; a Multiple Effect Distillation (MED) seawater desalination system for the Sohar Refinery Improvement Project in Oman; and the Ghalilah SWRO desalination plant in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, which has been described as a plant that "rewrites the rules for energy consumption at large-scale desalination installations and sets a new global benchmark for performance in membrane desalination."
About Aquatech
Aquatech International (www.aquatech.com) is a global leader in water purification technology for industrial and infrastructure markets with a focus on desalination, water reuse, and zero liquid discharge. The company is headquartered in the United States, and has a significant presence worldwide through subsidiaries in India, Europe, the Middle East, and China. Aquatech strives to provide technology leadership and performance excellence to the global water industry, and aims to support its clients with cutting-edge sustainable solutions, minimizing their life cycle cost, as well as their carbon and water footprint.
