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THE WATEX™ SYSTEM FOR SOIL EXPLORATION IN OMAN (PDO's NIMR REED BEDS, OMAN, 2007)
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CSR Projects Master Planning
THE WATEX™ SYSTEM FOR SOIL EXPLORATION IN OMAN (PDO's NIMR REED BEDS, OMAN, 2007)
A game changer to create a new oasis in the Dhofar barren desert: "Nimr Reed Beds" PDO's article
CONTEXT
In 2007, the aging oil fields of Nimr in the Dhofar desert, South of Oman, produced 980 million barrels of water for 500 000 barrels of oil. This water quantity had to be re-injected down to respect the contractual terms.
This process had to be reconsidered in 2007 by SHELL-PDO Consortium in charge of this concession.
What if we could use this wastewater to create a new oasis in the Dhofar desert, instead of re-injecting this water at high pressure and very high cost down to 1,500m ?
RTI was commissioned to investigate the soil potential overlying the barren rocky desert, using the WATEX™ System combined with field measurements.
SOIL EXPLORATION METHOD
Within a few days, the WATEX™ System revealed a paleo-drainage in a radius of less than 10 km from Nimr oil infrastructures. For agriculture purposes, a minimum of 40-cm soil thickness is needed. To map alluvial deposits thickness, a 250-km GPR program was conducted in 10 days, scanning down to 5 meters within the boundaries defined by the WATEX™ System.
RESULTS
In 2010, the Nimr Reed Beds program was born over this new identified soil area on this rocky barren desert.
The wetland created by the plantation of more than 1.2 million seedlings by PDO is now a desert habitat for close to 100 species of birds (sand martins, wagtails, flamingos...) as well as insects, fish and small reptiles.
A wetland formed by the reeds themselves is now covering around 2.4 million square metres of previously arid desert.
The site is now currently treating more than 700,000 barrels of produced water a day.
This results in a colossal saving in energy consumption if we compare it to the conventional, energy-consuming disposal method of pumping the water under high pressure more than 1.5 km below ground into deep aquifers.
This project, which has won multiple awards, is widely known in the world’s oil and gas sector as one of the most innovative environmentally friendly schemes.
TESTIMONY
Stefano Gambro, Project Manager at SHELL in 2007
" (...) Alain's work exceeded our expectations because not only did he deliver this very major scope in the short time that we provided, but he also overcame some major impromptu challenges in a very professional and astute manner. Alain is a natural troubleshooter with extensive multidisciplinary talents. (...)
Alain exceeded our expectations because he was able to not only deliver the GPR survey we commissioned, but his knowledge and experience in geology and geophysical sciences helped us more quickly and more thoroughly understand the results he delivered (...). "
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