The Zuluf oil field in eastern Saudi Arabia has achieved a key construction breakthrough, and the local heavyweight water treatment supporting project has successfully produced qualified reinjection water. This key project, which cost 439 million US dollars, has successfully completed construction and entered a new stage of trial operation, laying an important supporting foundation for the green and stable production of the local oil and gas industry.

Clear project overview

The project is located six kilometers west of Tanajib Airport in eastern Saudi Arabia, covering a total area of 420000 square meters. It is the core supporting project of the Zuluf offshore heavy crude oil production plan. In May 2023, Saudi Aramco finalized two bundled cooperation contracts with a total value of $439 million, including a $327 million EPC construction contract and a $112 million 25 year operation and maintenance service contract. The project is led by an Italian enterprise and jointly promoted by multiple professional institutions. It is fully responsible for engineering construction, equipment debugging, and long-term operation and maintenance management, with a construction period of three years.

Outstanding core functions

This water treatment plant is designed to treat a daily water volume of 185000 cubic meters. It adopts a complete set of mature processes including degassing and recovery, clarification and sedimentation, fine filtration, and pressurized transportation, which can deeply purify highly mineralized groundwater. The purified water that meets the standard will be injected back into the offshore oil reservoir, effectively maintaining formation pressure, solving the problem of formation pressure attenuation in crude oil extraction, and stabilizing oilfield production capacity. In early July 2026, the project will complete the full process linkage debugging, and all water quality and pressure indicators will meet the standards. This marks the basic completion of the construction phase and the comprehensive transition to the process optimization and trial operation phase, which will soon begin commercial operation. Keywords: Saudi Arabia, water treatment plants

Empowering regional development

During the project construction period, a total of about 1500 direct and indirect employment positions were created, and Saudi Arabia's localization development policy was strictly implemented to drive the upgrading of local building materials, equipment maintenance and other related industrial chains. At the same time, the project is equipped with environmental protection technologies such as waste gas recovery and sludge reduction to reduce mining waste emissions, which is in line with the sustainable development concept of Saudi Arabia's 2030 vision. The implementation of this project also marks the maturity of the water injection and pressure maintenance development model in Middle Eastern oil fields. The long-term operation and maintenance cooperation model has further consolidated the competitive advantage of European engineering enterprises in the Gulf energy and water market.Editor/Min Jing