Al-Ghanim to sign oil clean-up contract

02 August 2015

Contract forms part of the $2.9bn Kuwait Environmental Remediation Project

  • Around 500,000 cubic metres of contaminated soil is going to be transported under this contract
  • A total of 26 million cubic metres of contaminated soil needs to be either cleaned, or landfilled
  • This contract targets priority areas in the southeast of the country

Kuwaiti contractor Al-Ghanim International is due to sign a contract to to excavate, transport and dump around 500,000 cubic metres of contaminated soil from South East Kuwait, as part of a $2.9bn scheme to clean up pollution from the First Gulf War known as the Kuwait Environmental Remediation Project (KERP).

The contract is the second to target priority areas of contamination, according to Saad al-Saad, the senior technical consultant in Kuwait National Focal Point (KNFP).

The first contract targeted priority areas in the north of the country and was also won by Al-Ghanim International.

The contract is due to be signed sometime in the next two weeks, according to Saad al-Saad, the senior technical consultant in Kuwait National Focal Point (KNFP).

Priority areas are above aquifers and other places where prolonged exposure to pollutants could cause long-term damage that would be difficult to reverse.

The extensive pollution in Iraq’s north was caused in the final stages of the First Gulf War as Iraq’s retreating army torched over 600 of Kuwait’s oil wells. The fires burned for ten months before being extinguished, leaving behind a spill of around 22.5 million barrels of oil and damaging an area of 384 square kilometres.

Initially Kuwait planned to bury soil that has high levels of contamination, above 18 per cent oil, in 16 giant landfills. Surveys have found that there is around 26 million cubic metres of this sludge that needs to be cleared.

Due to fears that these large toxic landfills would cause problems for future generations Kuwait is now running studies to find out whether using new technologies to break down the oil is financially viable, something that would dramatically reduce the number of landfills needed.

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