New waste water treatment project set

RIYADH, July 25 – Making a headway with Saudi oil industry and emerging to be the second leading desalination company in the world, Metito Arabia Industries, the local pioneering Saudi company involved in waste water treatment and desalination, has bagged SR50 million waste water treatment contracts.

A new waste water treatment project of an average daily flow of about 2300 cubic meter per day has been awarded to Metito by Saudi Aramco whereas Arabian Oil Company has ordered for an industrial wastewater treatment unit.

These projects have been viewed as positive steps towards effective waste water management against the background that a minimum of about 50 percent of the quantities of the present annual domestic water consumption is produced as waste water effluent in major Saudi cities and towns.

“Besides the commercial viability of these projects, an effective waste water management will cater to the local needs, said Kassem Mazloum, Metito’s president here toady revealing that the total water demand in Saudi Arabia has increased from 2.36 billion cubic meter during 1980 to 16.23 billion cubic meter in 1990.

Referring to the area of irrigated agriculture in Saudi Arabia, he said that the area has increased from 150,000 hectares during 1975 to 1.36 million hectares in 1990.

On these scores, he recounted that the Riyadh-based Metito Arabia Industries has been recognized in the Wagnick reports of the ‘International Desalination Association’ as the second most leading company especially in terms of producing more and more fresh water daily on worldwide basis besides being involved in desalination, waste water treatment and water treatment works.

Disclosing the details of the two projects, Mazloum pointed out that “the waste water at Arabian Oil Company is generated by petroleum processing units containing oil and suspended matter. ” “Due to the chemical quality of the water, a special material is required for treatment units which can resist the corrosive action of water.” He noted.

The system, which will be commissioned by this Saudi company, is required to operate under abnormal conditions of temperature and pressure, giving very high-quality water.

“In order to have a system able to in- corporate all these circumstances, a high-rate filtration system with special material of construction and special dual filtering media at Arabian Oil Company has been designed”, said Mazloum referring to the capacity of treating 1 1440 cubic meters per day. “This shows that the improvement of water resources management is an important objective for efficient water utilization from conventional and non- conventional water resources in Saudi Arabia”, commented the Metito official.

The irrigation water demands comprise about 90 percent of the total water consumption whereas the non-renewable groundwater resources satisfies about 85 percent of the total demands.

Explaining the details of the large waste water treatment facility to be built by Metito for Saudi Aramco, Mazloum pointed out that “the project involves stages where inorganic solids are removed by specialized unit at an elevated headworks structure, followed by a biological treatment stage where soluble organic matter is oxidized in biological reactors through the supply of oxygen”

A detailed quality control plan has been prepared to cover all the activities in the fields of civil, electrical and mechanical works with reference to the applicable international and Saudi Armco standards.

Referring to the reutilization efforts, Mazloum said that a pre-proposal has been developed and discussed with the Water and Sewage Authority to develop plans for reutilization of about 300.000 cubic meter per day of waste water effluents from Al- Khobar and Dammam cities.

With abundant similar instances with several bottlenecks still existing speaking in the context of overall water management, this effluent coming out of several other cities of Saudi Arabia, is being discharged into the Gulf without any reuse.

Replying a question regarding Metito’s expansion program, he pointed out that the company has recently opened its offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and China besides diversifying its business in all GCC states. Metito has its operation in 21 countries worldwide. With three offices in Saudi Arabia employing over 400 skilled workers and predominantly chemical and mechanical engineers from all around the world, Metito has two manufacturing facilities in the Kingdom.

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