The inauguration of the UAE’s largest sewage treatment plant was held recently, with builder Larsen & Toubro holding a launch ceremony for Dubai Municipality officials.
The 375,000-cu-m-per day sewage treatment plant (STP) is located at Jebel Ali (Phase 2). Built along with JV partners Besix, the plant is the biggest of its type constructed by L&T Construction. It was completed and delivered ahead of schedule, while maintaining the highest standards of quality and safety.
“This is perhaps the first project of this magnitude and complexity that has been completed and delivered ahead of time with not a single minute lost due to incidents of any kind,” said S N Subrahmanyan, chief executive officer and managing director, Larsen & Toubro.
“With water becoming such a precious commodity the world over, projects like these make a huge difference to the ecology and it is always good to be associated with such projects,” he added.
The inauguration was attended by Engineer Dawood Abdulrahman Al Hajiri, director general of Dubai Municipality, along with Talib Julfar, assistant director general, Fahd Al Awadhi, director and other senior officials of the Dubai Municipality.
The Jebel Ali Sewage Treatment Plant Phase 2 Expansion is a strategic project by Dubai Municipality to meet current and future demand generated from the surrounding area, which will see major new developments come up, including Expo 2020.
The Jebel Ali treatment facilities have total treatment capacity of 675 MLD which includes existing 300 MLD of Phase 1.
“The Jebel Ali STP is critical to the water conservation plans of our client, Dubai Municipality, for it allows the city to reduce the use of expensive fresh water by reusing 375,000 litres per day treated sewage effluent for non-potable applications such as irrigation,” informed S Rajavel, senior vice president and head, water, smart world and communication, L&T Construction.
“That we have been able to achieve the very high standards demanded by the client and clock 10 million safe man hours in the process reinforce our credentials as the foremost Indian construction company in the Middle East.”
Built on a build, test, commission, operate and maintain model, the STP features primary, secondary and tertiary treatment process units such as screening, grit separation and removal, primary sedimentation (flight and scrapper mechanism), biological reactors, final settlement (bridge and scrapper mechanism), tertiary filtration (gravity filters), ultraviolet (UV) disinfection and chlorination.
The sludge treatment process includes sludge thickening (rotary drums and belt thickeners), anaerobic digestion, dewatering (centrifuge), sludge drying (thermal paddle dryers) facilities and robotic bagging system.
Other scope of works included odour control facilities, Phase 1 STP interconnection, upgrading works in Phase 1, effluent pump stations, effluent reservoirs and biological reactors.