Adding to its growing footprint in the Sultanate, French environmental services provider Suez has announced that it has been awarded a contract to operate and maintain one of Oman’s biggest engineered landfills — located in Barka in South Al Batinah Governorate.
The five-year contract was awarded by the wholly-government owned Oman Environmental Services Holding Company (be’ah), the Sultanate’s solid waste management flagship. As part of its remit, Suez will oversee the reception and landfilling of 2,200 tonnes of municipal solid waste daily, it said in a statement.
As with major landfills in the Sultanate, the Barka facility will incorporate a biogas extraction and disposal system together with a Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) plant for treating leachates. This will help in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the landfill, as well as protect groundwater from potential contamination.
The Barka contract is the latest addition to a growing portfolio of landfills and related facilities that currently fall under Suez’s operational purview. It includes the Al Amerat Municipal Solid Waste Landfill, the Sohar Hazardous Waste Landfill and Duqm Municipal and Industrial Waste Landfill.
Additionally, the Barka landfill is significant because it is expected to play a key part in the planned development of a first-ever Waste to Energy project proposed by Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) at Barka.
Calorific elements segregated from municipal waste arriving at the landfill are proposed to be used as feedstock for a roughly 150 MW capacity power plant, tendering for which is expected to commence in earnest next year. The plant is expected to utilise an estimated 1.4 million tonnes of municipal waste per annum as feedstock.
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