High-tech waste plant in the desert

Keppel Integrated Engineering built the $1.7b Qatar project, and also manages it

By Jonathan Kwok, The Straits Times, 30 Jun 2012

IN EARLY 2007, Australia-born engineer Geoffrey Piggott was driven to the middle of a vast desert near the Qatari industrial township of Mesaieed.

There, surrounded by flat stony and sandy desert as far as the eye could see, he had a 3sqkm area marked out for him.

He was told to build a modern waste management plant for Qatar's government.

'I had to look for the site with a GPS. It was completely flat, there were no roads, no water, no supplies, no electricity, no telecommunications,' recalled Mr Piggott, a project director with Singapore's Keppel Integrated Engineering (KIE).

'All we had were a few pegs in the ground marking out the site for us.'

That marked the start of the Domestic Solid Waste Management Centre, which stands on the site today. The state-of-the-art facility processes 2,300 tonnes of solid waste a day. A Qatar government strategy paper says this is about the amount of rubbish generated by all households in Qatar.

It has also put Singapore on the world map in terms of waste management. KIE was behind the design, construction and running of the facility.

The plant has received attention as the first integrated waste management plant in the Middle East - combining sorting and recycling, compost production, energy production from waste and landfilling all in one facility. It is also one of the first such plants in the world. A unique aspect is the different processes being in a single location, to treat all types of waste in an environmentally friendly way.

'This plant is something that we are pretty proud of - as a Singapore-based company, to be able to do this in the Middle East, so far away,' said BG (NS) Tay Lim Heng, chief executive of KIE, a subsidiary of rigbuilding giant Keppel Corp.

'When we secured the contract, it was possibly one of the biggest single engineering projects won by a Singapore-based company in an overseas country.'

With the support of Singapore's National Environment Agency, KIE had in 2006 snagged the contract worth 3.9 billion Qatari riyal - or about S$1.7 billion at the time - which includes operating and maintaining the facility for 20 years.

Work started in early 2007, and soon there were more than 2,000 workers from 26 countries working on the construction site.

The weather was a major challenge, with summer temperatures soaring to 40 deg C or more, and little or no rainfall.

The workers built everything from roads to accommodation, power supply and water supply - essentially, an entire small town out in the desert.

To cater to all the nationalities, there were three canteens serving different cuisines across the 3sqkm site - about the size of 420 football fields.

The wildlife was a challenge as well, said Mr Piggott. 'We had to build a fence to keep out the camels. They would otherwise go wherever there was a drop of water on the site.'

On working with the Qatar government, Mr Piggott said that although the relevant ministries were helpful, some of the approval processes for various permits were lengthy.

Finally, after 10 million man-hours, the Domestic Solid Waste Management Centre was completed last October, handed to the Qatari government and started operating. Now, the plant is manned by 250 KIE personnel, including 15 Singapore citizens and permanent residents.

Less than 5 per cent of the waste volume arriving ends up in the landfill, with the rest being converted into compost, recycled or incinerated. Before that, Qatar buried its waste in landfills with minimal processing.

The centre includes waste separation and recycling facilities, which sort metals and plastics from the trash to be processed and reused. Organic waste material is sent to a compost plant within the compound, to be converted into compost fertiliser, while inorganic material goes to a waste-to-energy plant for the generation of electricity. Only a small volume of the original rubbish ends up in the on-site landfill, which will be able to last for about 20 years.

Mr Tay reckoned that such integrated facilities can be the way ahead for many countries, with the increasing focus on green energy and sustainable development.

Singapore does not have any totally integrated waste management plants. A major constraint is the scarcity of land here, he said.

In contrast, Qatar, which has the greatest number of proven reserves of oil and gas in the world, has plenty of land. It is 16 times Singapore's size, with a population of only 1.8 million. Singapore's four waste-to-energy plants will be able to fit into KIE's Qatar facility easily, Mr Tay said.

But Singapore's efforts in waste management include recycling facilities and a well-managed landfill at Pulau Semakau which stores incineration ash, experts say.

For KIE, Qatar's Domestic Solid Waste Management Centre was its first project in a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) state.

Mr Tay said that with Qatar looking to build up its infrastructure for the 2022 Fifa World Cup, other possible projects in the country could include 'district cooling'. This involves centralised cooling for many buildings using chilled water.

KIE already operates the district cooling systems in Singapore's one-north, Woodlands Wafer Fab Park and Changi Business Park.

He added that with other GCC countries also facing challenges with waste management, KIE will be keen to pursue projects similar to the Qatar plant across the region.