Discover this massive effluent treatment plant

We have been awarded a contract for a massive effluent treatment plant (ETP) for one of the world’s major manufacturers of polyolefins, a family of thermoplastics that include polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) and located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

We made the announcement at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (ADIPEC) 2023 – the world’s biggest platform that helps drive innovation in the global oil and gas industry. Site handover will take place by end Q1 2024 and will be fully operational by end of 2024. Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed.

“Every turnkey ETP project for the oil and gas industry we have delivered further establishes Cannon Artes’ growing presence and expertise to design, construct and install highly complex infrastructure to treat and purify industrial effluent with great attention to energy consumption, sustainability, and reusable water recovery,” said Alessio Liati, Sales Director at Cannon Artes. “This huge project demands maximum design capacity with an extremely challenging treatment process to remove oil and other contaminants, biological treatment and filtration to ensure the concentration in the effluent stream is at a minimum level to reuse or meet stringent regulations prior to its safe discharge into the environment.”

The total infrastructure of the treatment plant will be spread over an area equal to two football fields with a capacity to treat up to 5,000m3/d (5 million liters per day) similar to the needs of a city of a hundred thousand people.

The plant will comprise four incoming influent streams charged with a variety of pollutants. Designed to offer maximum flexibility, the ETP will be composed of a sequence of up to fifteen unit-operations to deal, respectively, with the multiple physical and chemical variations activated by upstream processes and designed to meet strict specifications regarding, among others, organics, oils, suspended solids (TSS), phenols and nitrogen.

Briefly, pre-treatment unit-operation utilizes equalization, coalescing plate interceptors (CPI), and dissolved gas flotation to remove suspended solids, oils, and grease from wastewater. The subsequent unit operations and processes are essential and designed to meet very strict specifications concerning biological and chemical oxygen demand (BOD and COD) such as biological oxidation through extended aeration technology and an advanced oxidation section to remove recalcitrant pollutants. The resultant separated sludge is additionally treated in a dedicated dehydration system.

In addition to oil and gas, chemicals, and petrochemicals facilities, and with over 40 years’ experience (more than 20 in the UAE), we operate worldwide and have designed and installed tailormade ETPs and wastewater treatment (WWT) plants in over 80 countries for major global and regional players across a wide range of industries such as pharmaceuticals, pulp and paper, and food and beverage.