Bauer Nimr LLC, a local subsidiary of Bauer Resources GmbH in Oman, has been operating the world’s largest commercial reed bed treatment plant for 10 years
The plant is a multi-award winning flagship project for the biological cleaning of polluted water from oil production at the Nimr oil field in the south of the country, with the first phase of the project completed by Bauer Nimr in 2011.
After three weeks, the plant achieved its first milestone. “We were able to significantly outperform the contractually agreed cleaning capacity of 45,000 cu/m per day,” said Ulrich Emmer, managing director of Bauer Nimr.
Construction work was successfully completed in 2019 with the third and final expansion. At peak times, up to 175,000 cu/m of polluted water currently runs through the plant in one day, and a total of 370 million cu/m water has been cleaned so far with an excellent cleaning performance: At the end of the process, a hydrocarbon content of less than 0.5 mg/l is achieved. Around 95% of the crude oil in the water can be removed or recovered without the use of energy or chemicals.
"After ten years of operation, a total of approx. 1.275 million tons of CO2 emissions have been saved – according to estimates, by the end of operations in 2044, it will save 4.5 million tons of CO2,” explained Dr Roman Breuer, managing director of Bauer Resources GmbH.
In addition to this, with approx. 1.5 billion reed plants, the former desert landscape also provides a habitat for more than 140 animal species including numerous birds, fish and reptiles.
“With an order volume of roughly US$600mn over its entire period of operation, the reed bed treatment plant in Oman is one of the most significant projects run by Bauer Resources and we will continue operation for another 23 years,” concluded Dr Roman Breuer.
