JEDDAH, 16 March 2005 — Seventeen UK companies participated in a one-day water and environment seminar at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry (JCCI) yesterday. Environmental concerns dominated the agenda with the emphasis very much on wastewater treatment, recovery and disposal in environmentally sustainable ways.
Over 250 senior management delegates from commercial and government sectors attended the seminar. Lawrie Walker, chairman of the Middle East Association and organizer of the delegation from the UK, expressed his satisfaction with the high level of knowledgeable attendees.
The group moves on to Yanbu today for meetings with senior officials and an in-depth look at the infrastructure of the Royal Commission project.
The morning session of presentations was co chaired by Carma Elliot, UK consul general, and Saud Ounallah of the JCCI.
Elliot said that Saudi Arabia presented major challenges and exciting opportunities to those in the environment and water business and said UK consultants, contractors and equipment manufacturers had “long contributed to the success already achieved by the Saudi environmental and water authorities and private companies, and this happily continues to be the case.”
She observed that the commercial scene in the Kingdom had been actively promoting cooperation in the commercial and private sectors, noting that environmental delegations had visited the UK in the past and that more were going this year to three major exhibitions: The Environmental Technology Exhibition; Waste Management Exhibition and International Water and Effluent Exhibition.
Ounallah stressed the importance of environmental awareness and the role of private sector management in sustaining a clean and healthy environment. He said the chamber of commerce called on all companies to comply with environmental regulations and standards that enable them to make optimal use of resources and commended the government’s environmental programs that aimed at achieving balance between commercial and environmental concerns.
The individual presentations covered topics from design and construction of water treatment plants through the specialized technologies for reclamation of usable solids and recycling of water to the need for training and environmental management systems.
Rory Morgan of ACWA Services described a “cartridge” design for sewage treatment that eliminated the need for traditional three-stage processing and allowed one-step treatment. As with several other of the water treatment solutions described, the urban “footprint” of the plant needed was relatively small, allowing minimum impact on the environment and allowing retro-construction in urban areas.
Morgan described one 18,000 cubic meter per day unit, now installed on Palm Island off Dubai which had to meet strict local ordinances of zero noise, odor and high purity of output. With Jeddah’s urban area expanding rapidly, small efficient yet high capacity processing plants with low maintenance needs drew considerable interest.
Solid waste recovery featured strongly in the technologies presented. Richard Hogg of Compact Power outlined his company’s process for producing power from waste and biomass. Using pyrolisis — superheating waste material in the absence of oxygen — usable hydrocarbons can be recovered and reused as energy with up to 85 percent efficiency. He explained that where fuel prices are high, the technology is valuable as an alternative fuel source; in rapidly developing urban environments with increasing waste problems, it offered an efficient form of recycling domestic waste as energy.
Terence Bohanna of MHP Environmental Technologies presented a revolutionary “displacement light” waste processing technology. “We don’t have any waste,” he said. “The waste material is all recycled, the solids compacted into building blocks or road metalling.” The technology, producing zero carbon emissions, petrifies the waste turning it into what is effectively stone, using a technology that “alters the electronic nucleus of the components of the waste.”
A note of caution was sounded by Peter Wilson of WSP Environmental. “Don’t sit comfortably thinking what you do today won’t come back to haunt you,” he told the audience. He emphasized the importance of training, planning and “intelligence capital” used in constructing commercial strategies. He said incorporating environmental considerations in the business plan actually reduced legal liability from pollution and increased ease of access to finance for large projects. “Saudi Arabia is a maturing industrial society and with that comes a riding expectation from society.”
Many financial institutions require an environmental plan before they invest in new projects. Saudi Arabia is estimated to need $5.7 trillion as investment in oil and associated industries by 2050.
