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Fast drinking water solution is worth bottling

Mining & Resources

AN ability to provide world-class desalination systems in short timeframes is helping an Australian water treatment company attract business across the globe.

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South Australian company Osmoflo has recently completed the Barka desalination plant 60km northwest of Oman’s capital Muscat, which is providing drinking water to 250,000 people.

The company was hired by Saudi Arabian corporation ACWA Power to develop the plant to help meet the needs of the region.

The new plant draws seawater from the Gulf of Oman and has a capacity of 56,775 cubic metres a day. It is part of a phase two expansion of ACWA Power’s operations in Barka, where it already runs a smaller plant.

Osmoflo co-founder Mark Fabig said the company was chosen because of its ability to establish the desalination plant quickly.

“Osmoflo could deliver this project within a very small time frame, less than 12 months, from raw dirt to having a full production facility. No other company in the world could do that,” Fabig said.

“Water consumption in Oman has taken off in the last few years and is projected to increase dramatically in the next five years as well.”

“The Barka project filled a gap that was looming in the next few years between some major projects starting up and their current situations.”

The Omani government has been searching for various solutions to the country’s lack of fresh water.

“The plant takes water from the multi-stage flash evaporation process and runs it through a pre-filtration system including microfiltration, then it goes onto reverse osmosis membranes and then it gets a full post treatment process involving chlorine, lime, carbon dioxide,” Fabig said.

Fabig said the Barka project helped to push the boundaries of desalinisation plant development by decreasing production time while maintaining optimal safety precautions.

“This is a world-class project done in record time that is understood by all in the industry to be a real benchmark,” he said.

The Osmoflo project has been nominated for a Global Water Intelligence award.

The South Australian company is based in the state’s capital Adelaide and has delivered more than 450 projects across the globe since its establishment in 1991.

The company is now working to establish two seawater reverse osmosis plants in the Marshall Islands to provide drinking water to the Pacific nation.

Osmoflo General Manager of Sales and International Ajay Jaggi said the Marshall Islands project reflected the company’s reputation and international capabilities.

“Having completed projects in all corners of the globe, providing a water solution to a location like the Marshall Islands is all in a day’s work for Osmoflo,” he said.

South Australia – the driest state on the driest continent on earth – has a long history of water industry innovation.

Osmoflo also has offices in several other countries including Chile, India, and the United Arab Emirates.

It provides tailored, turn-key water and wastewater solutions across the industrial, and municipal resources sectors.

It also works in a number of other sectors including the food and beverage industry where it is involved with companies including Coca-Cola, Coopers and Schweppes. 

This is a Creative Commons story from The Lead South Australia, a news service providing stories about innovation in South Australia. Please feel free to use the story in any form of media. The story sources are linked in with the copy and all contacts are willing to talk further about the story. Copied to Clipboard

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