RWL Water Group Awarded $100 Million Contract in Central Colombia

RWL Water Group announced a major contract awarded to the group's subsidiary, Nirosoft Industries Ltd., by Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp., the largest independent oil and gas exploration and production company in Colombia. The $100 million contract consists of the design and construction of a "produced water" desalination plant, as well as the operation and maintenance of this plant for a period of 10 years.

The plant will be located at Pacific Rubiales' oil field in the Meta region of Puerto Gaitan and will produce 500,000 water barrels per day.  The "produced water," a by-product of the petroleum extraction, will be treated by the Nirosoft water purification system to meet environmental discharge requirements. Nirosoft's treatment process will replace the current process whereby produced water is disposed by deep well injection, and will provide desalinated water for agricultural use to grow trees, thus alleviating costs and improving sustainability standards.

To develop a custom solution for this project, Nirosoft operated a pilot plant unit on-site for six months and optimized the process design on the basis of the test results. The final plant design has addressed significant technological challenges involving the removal of hydrocarbons. The plant will consist of various pre-treatment stages with innovative separation and filtration technologies, prior to the high recovery reverse osmosis system. The treatment plant will further limit environmental impact by minimizing brine rejection with a final sludge treatment.

Source: RWL Water Group