Sharjah Municipality awards major sewage treatment contract

"This is part of our ongoing efforts to improve the civic services in the emirate and provide citizens and residents better amenities and living conditions," said Dr. Salah Tahir Al Haj, Director General of Sharjah Municipality, soon after signing the contract with AnoxKaldnes AS of Norway.

On successful commissioning, the capacity of the plant will be increased by almost 50% according to Mr. Sultan Al Mulla, Deputy Director General of the Municipality. From the present treatment capacity of 37,500 cubic metre per day, the plant will be augmented to treat 53,000 cubic metre per day of sewage. Halcrow International Partnership who have designed and supervised all the major sewage treatment projects in Sharjah was the consultant on this project also.

The advanced Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR) technology developed by the Scandinavian major, Anox Kaldness AS will be employed in the expansion project, according to Mr. Abdul Aziz, Manager of Sharjah Municipality Drainage Section. "We explored several technologies available in the world market before we zeroed in on MBBR", he said.

Short gestation period, requirement of minimum civil works and low capital cost per cubic meter of treated sewage are some of the factors which weighed in favour of AnoxKaldnes MBBR, according Mr. Abdul Aziz. An MBBR plant occupies only 35 to 40% of the land area as compared to plants based on conventional treatment processes. The current expansion is being carried out without any increase in the footprint of the existing plant. Further, by employing MBBR technology an additional capacity to treat 15,500 cubic metre of sewage per day will be created in a matter of just 11 months where as constructing a green field project of same size would take not less than 2 years time.

"We have several MBBR based plants in the region but this is the first major municipal project being executed by us in the gulf" said Mr.Terje Andersen, Managing Director of AnoxKaldnes AS, Norway. We are in negotiations with several other local bodies in the region, he added. In the context of exploding population all over the region, all the infrastructure are heavily stressed. Mr.Andersen claimed MBBR to be the most suited technology for easy and fast expansion of existing sewage treatment plants. The ever increasing cost of real estate is another reason to rely on MBBR for new projects because of the compact size of the plants. Global Engineering Systems FZC based in SAIF Zone, the AnoxKaldnes licensee for Middle East and India, will assist them with the execution of the project.