Since November 28, 2010 — precisely two years to the day after the contract was awarded by the client Petroleum Development Oman — produced water has been flowing into the world’s biggest commercial reed-bed sewage treatment plant, which covers 235 hectares. This has been achieved by local resources subsidiary BAUER Nimr LLC in a build-own-operate project and with the aid of a finance package from the German Investment and Development Corporation (DEG).
BAUER Water-Project in Oman Background: At the Nimr oil field around 250,000 cubic metres of contaminated water are brought to the surface together with the oil; this water then has to be disposed of. Using a test plant in the oil field and on the basis of experience gathered in recent years in the Middle East, Dr. Roman Breuer, who is the responsible engineer at Bauer Resources GmbH, and his team developed and optimised a suitable plan for the plant. Particular attention was paid to sustainability: crude oil to the value of several thousand US dollars is recovered every day, and the energy requirements of the plant have been reduced by more than 80 percent in comparison with standard technologies.
The plant is currently purifying around 47,000 cubic metres of contaminated water every day, achieving a level of purification of 99.5 percent. Furthermore, biomass is also produced as a possible energy source and a biotope. One other valuable by-product is salt, which remains after the water has been evaporated and is to be used in industry.
