Qatargas has recently completed work on a wastewater treatment plant at one of its liquefied natural gas plants in Ras Laffan using Membrane Bio-Reactor (MBR) technology. 
The facility, set up at the Qatargas 1 (QG 1) plant with a capacity to treat nearly 1,300 cubic metres of wastewater per day, is a first for the LNG industry in the region. The project was designed in response to an internally identified gap in the QG1 process wastewater treatment facility in order to treat waste water and get irrigation grade water that could be reused in line with the State of Qatar’s Ministry of Municipality And Environment (MoME) regulations. 
The design, procurement and construction works of the project were led by a multi-disciplinary team at Qatargas including members of the Environmental Affairs, Engineering and Ventures Departments that was set up in 2008.  
On the significant achievement, Qatargas Chief Operating Officer (Engineering & Ventures) Sheikh Khalid bin Abdulla al-Thani said, “This is a very important accomplishment for Qatargas as we have set a precedent in the LNG industry in the region to reuse wastewater at the Qatargas 1 plant. “This project is a clear manifestation of our commitment to environmental conservation and is part of the huge investments we have made in the recent past to minimise our environmental footprint, in line with the values spelled out in the Qatargas Direction Statement. I congratulate all those who worked on the planning, design and construction phases of this project and those who contributed to its successful operation.”
An innovative solution has been introduced to set up this facility using a ‘membrane bio-reactor’, which uses a combination of bacterial bio-reactor to consume and breakdown the pollutants. The downstream of this bio-reactor’s man-made membranes are used to screen out larger particles, bacterial-biomass and other compounds. 
The pilot MBR Plant was first  tested for six months in 2008, following which Qatargas 1 embarked on the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) and the Execution Phase Contracts (EPC) and the start-up between 2011 and 2015 for installation of a full scale MBR at QG1. 
The MBR now operates at the expected design efficiencies obtaining removal rates of more than 95% for key parameters including Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and nitrogen compounds. These results have allowed the treated water to be significantly better than other conventional technologies and an indication of the project’s success. Qatargas said it is keen to introduce “similar innovative solutions” for wastewater treatment at its facilities in future.