Siemens Establishes Mobile Treatment Services in Middle East
Siemens Water Technologies has established its mobile water treatment solutions in the Middle East with its first installation outside North America, where the company services thousands of municipal and industrial customers, according to a Nov. 20 press release.
Siemens will supply the system to Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia. The 50-m3/hr system uses media filtration, followed by reverse osmosis, to treat and purify groundwater for use as drinking water. The mobile water treatment units began operation on June 15, 2008, and will be on site for about three years. The containerized systems provide rapid response for emergency or unplanned maintenance, minimal field construction costs, and the flexibility to upgrade or change a treatment process if source water chemistry changes.
The system at Saudi Aramco will supply 50 m3/hr of treated water to supplement an existing drinking water supply during construction of a new permanent system. The company selected a mobile unit instead of a permanent treatment system, because the fully integrated, containerized system can be installed quickly with minimal construction time. "The protection of this vital resource is an important responsibility and one of Saudi Aramco's highest priorities," said Mazen Snobar, Community Services executive director at Saudi Aramco.
Unlike the systems in North America which, are built inside trailers (on wheels), expansion of the mobile treatment concept into Saudi Arabia involved designing treatment systems to be built in international-standard ISO containers. All of the necessary interconnecting piping, power distribution, and instrumentation are complete within the container, including PLC controls for fully automatic operations. Chemical feed systems are integrated in the container, when required. This configuration allows Siemens to adapt fully-integrated treatment systems into transportable containers built to withstand rigorous use and transportation. Once on site, a single-point connection for water inlet and outlet and a single-point connection for the power supply are all that is required.