The UAE’s largest sewage treatment plant (STP) built by Larsen & Toubro for the Dubai Municipality was inaugurated recently.

 The 375,000-cu-m-per-day sewage treatment plant at Jebel Ali (Phase Two)  was built along with JV partners, Besix, and is the biggest such plant constructed by L&T. “This is perhaps the first project of this magnitude and complexity that has been completed and delivered ahead of time with not a single minute lost due to incidents of any kind,” says S N Subrahmanyan, chief executive officer and managing director, Larsen & Toubro. 

 The Jebel Ali STP Phase Two expansion is Dubai Municipality’s strategic project to meet current and future demand from the surrounding area that will see major new developments including Expo 2020.

 “The Jebel Ali STP is critical to the water conservation plans of Dubai Municipality, for it allows the city to reduce the use of expensive fresh water by reusing 375,000 litres per day treated sewage effluent for non-potable applications such as irrigation,” says S Rajavel, senior vice president and head, water, smart world and communication, L&T Construction. “That we have been able to achieve the very high standards demanded by the client and clock 10 million safe man hours in the process reinforce our credentials as the foremost Indian construction company in the Middle East.”

 The STP features primary, secondary and tertiary treatment process units such as screening, grit separation and removal, primary sedimentation (flight and scrapper mechanism), biological reactors, final settlement (bridge and scrapper mechanism), tertiary filtration (gravity filters), ultraviolet (UV) disinfection and chlorination.

 The sludge treatment process includes sludge thickening (rotary drums and belt thickeners), anaerobic digestion, dewatering (centrifuge), sludge drying (thermal paddle dryers) facilities and robotic bagging system.  Also included in the scope of works were odour control facilities.