Oil and gas companies in Oman go green to protect environment

Oil and gas companies in Oman go green to protect environment

Muscat: Oil and gas companies in Oman are increasingly adding green practices into their operations, to help sustain the environments in which they operate over the long-term. While some choose to recycle the water brought up to the surface during oil extraction by building wetlands that help local species of animals and birds thrive while reducing desertification, others are setting up facilities that produce far fewer pollutants during the process of oil refining. Among the industry pioneers in environmental sustainability are Petroleum Development Oman, which set up the Al Nimr Water Treatment Project to treat 760, 000 barrels of water that is part of the oil extraction process at the Nimr oilfields in the deserts of southern Oman. "This natural treatment system consists of a passive oil-water separator, 380 hectares of surface flow wetlands and 300 hectares of evaporation ponds and has been instrumental in reducing the amount of hydrocarbon-polluted produced water being disposed to the deep well aquifers," said PDO in a statement. "The NWTP, being a gravity flow system, uses minimal fossil fuel for its operation and therefore results in an enormous saving in energy consumption compared to the conventional, energy-intensive disposal method of pumping the water more