One of the global challenges faced by the oil and gas industry is wastewater management, requiring immediate action to solve this problem. Regulations imposed by Qatar Petroleum require a 50 percent reduction in liquid discharge from all oil and gas facilities in Qatar.

The ‘Osmotic concentration for reducing injected wastewater volumes in Qatar’, launched in 2018, aimed to address this problem by incorporating the low-energy technology “Osmotic Concentration (OC)” based on the natural osmosis phenomenon principles for volume reduction of this wastewater.

The concept of the osmotic concentration process gained popularity after the ConocoPhillips Global Water Sustainability Center (GWSC) research team showcased promising results, with the technical feasibility of 50 percent volume reduction of wastewater, back in 2016. The study of this method at a pilot-scale level was then proposed as a joint collaboration between Gas Processing Center (GPC) at Qatar University and ConocoPhillips GWSC.

Funded by the Qatar National Research Fund, the project demonstrated the technology’s technical viability, attaining a 75 percent reduction of the disposal volume with minimal environmental impact and a much lower cost than the state of the art technology currently being implemented in the field.

A virtual meeting organized by the GPC to commemorate the project completion of the pilot-scale project on October 1, 2020. It witnessed the participation of many managerial and technical notables, including Sheikh Khalid bin Abdulla Al Thani, Chief Engineering & Projects Officer, Qatargas; Dr. Khalid Naji, Dean, College of Engineering; Qatar University, Prof Muftah El-Naas, GPC Director; Todd Creeger President of ConocoPhillips, Qatar; and other dignitaries from Qatar University, Qatargas, and ConocoPhillips.

The research team led by Dr. Mustafa Nasser from Qatar University and Dr. Samer Adham from ConocoPhillips highlighted the main successful outcomes of the project, spoke of the team’s dedication and the direct application of this projection to Qatar. Sheikh Khalid bin Abdulla Al Thani, head of the Qatargas delegation, expressed his delight in being able to partake in this project and expects to collaborate with Qatar University in the future.

“CENG supports all forms of collaboration with Qatargas in academia research and community service levels. This collaboration will be added to the series of cooperation initiatives that the college has experienced with Qatargas before. Several Ph.D. students from Qatargas are currently pursuing their graduate studies at CENG,” said Dr. Khaled Kamal Naji.

According to Todd Creeger, President of ConocoPhillips Qatar, “ConocoPhillips is a proud partner in Qatargas, and we are pleased to have GWSC collaborate with GPC in this important project in support of capacity building in Qatar.”

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Source: Peninsula Qatar