Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) is carrying out a pilot project to determine whether the large volumes of saline water produced from its oil wells can be purified with a distillation system using a special membrane material, confirmed a press release.
The pilot project is taking place under the auspices of PDO, Shell and Solar Dew, an independent offshoot of the Netherlands-based Akzo Nobel chemical company, which discovered the novel membrane material at the heart of the distillation system. The Royal Dutch/Shell Group owns the rights to the Solar Dew technology for oilfield applications.
The Solar Dew uses salt-tolerant reeds cultivated at Nimr in south Oman to remove residual oil from the saline water by-product of crude-oil production. PDO produces approximately 600,000 cubic meters of such water every day, compared to 135,000 cubic meters of oil.
The Solar Dew system removes the salt as well as other chemical impurities from the water. As much as five liters of water per square meter per day can be produced. A distilled water analysis confirmed that the water is drinkable according to Omani standards.
"The Department of Agriculture at Sultan Qaboos University are interested in this," confirmed Straccia. If longer-term development efforts succeed in making the costs of the reed bed/Solar Dew scheme competitive, it could provide a source of water for households and irrigation. It even opens up the possibility of growing high-value crops, such as lettuce and tomatoes.
PDO is a hydrocarbon exploration and production company, responsible for the production of over 95 percent of the Sultanate of Oman's Oil. PDO, the country's second-largest employer after the government, is a consortium 60 percent held by the Omani government, 34 percent by Shell, four percent by Total and two percent by Partex. — (menareport.com)
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
