BAUER AG

In October 2017 the BAUER Group, Schrobenhausen/Germany, was awarded the contract to expand the world’s biggest industrial constructed wetland in the Sultanate of Oman on behalf of Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), the leading oil and gas exploration and production company in the country (Figure 1). The plant’s first stage was completed in 2011 by the local subsidiary of BAUER Resources GmbH (BAUER Nimr LLC). The flagship project for treating contaminated water from oil extraction in the Sultanate of Oman in Nimr has won numerous international awards for excellence in sustainability, innovation and safety.

The innovative wetland treatment technology is unique in utilizing gravity-flow and natural processes to remove a heavy load of hydrocarbons from the water. The facility is remarkable for its size, covering 10.5 km². In addition to the excellent treatment performance, with the hydrocarbon content in water being reduced to below 0.5 ppm at the outlet of the wetlands, almost 95 % of the crude oil entering the facility is recovered or removed without the use of electricity or chemicals. Following an expansion in 2014, 115,000 m³ can now run through the plant every day. Furthermore, the desert site has been converted into a home to more than 140 species of animals, including a multitude of birds, fish and reptiles.

The commissioned expansion will now see the plant’s capability being expanded by 60,000 m³/d to reach a total capacity of 175,000 m³/d. BAUER Nimr LLC will be responsible for designing, constructing and operating the plant until 2044. The entire project is worth over 160 m €, whereof the construction works amount to about one-quarter of the total volume. Construction will be finished by the end of 2019, after which Bauer will operate the plant on a 25-year basis.

Further information:
Bauer AG
www.bauer.de

The Schwarze Pumpe industrial area in the city of Spremberg in Brandenburg covers a total of 720 ha and includes the former industrial site Spreewitz in the neighboring Free State of Saxony. Today, around 80 companies with some 4,250 employees are located in the area where lignite has been refined into briquettes, coke and city gas and converted into electricity in a power station since the mid-1950s. The gas combination plant Schwarze Pumpe, which was turned into the company Energiewerke Schwarze Pumpe AG in 1990, was one of the key pillars of the GDR’s energy industry. On the former grounds of the plant, various hazardous materials have however made their way into the soil over the decades, principally through the process of refining lignite. In addition to benzene, an amount of monoaromatic compounds (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene) as well as polycyclic hydrocarbons (PAH) and hydrocarbons (HC) can be found. The soil contamination, which is extremely high in part, still acts as a source of groundwater pollution.

To remove this contamination, Lausitzer und Mitteldeutsche Bergbau-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH (LMBV), Senftenberg/Germany, recently commissioned BAUER Resources GmbH, Schrobenhausen/Germany, with its Bauer Umwelt business unit and the company Lobbe Industrieservice GmbH & Co KG, Duisburg/Germany, as JV partner to build and operate a vacuum treatment plant as well as replace or decontaminate the soil as necessary (Figure 1). All of the specialist foundation engineering and soil exchange measures will be executed by BAUER Resources GmbH and BAUER Spezialtiefbau GmbH. The work starts in November this year and should be completed by 2022.

As well as demolishing the existing superstructure on an area totaling around 25,000 m², Bauer will also produce six primary sheet pile walls with an overall length of 1,340 m and depth of up to 20 m as well as 147 sheet pile boxes (11.4 x 9.7 m) with a depth of up to 15 m. Every one of the six sections will be immured by a back-anchored primary sheet pile wall. Then, the entire section will be excavated 4.5 m below ground level. Following that, a working platform will be created from where the sheet pile boxes will be inserted. These will form the secondary sheet pile wall and will be secured with a reinforcement brace.

A telescopic excavator will be used to replace a total of over 281,500 t of contaminated soil down to 14 m below ground level. Because the contaminant benzene is an extremely volatile medium, the excavation will be carried out with continuous air extraction and purification. The contaminated groundwater, which to some extent is a mixture of oil and water, levels out in the sheet pile boxes and can be siphoned off during the excavation. The contaminated soil is taken to the treatment plant built and run by Lobbe and returned after it has been treated. As well as a BAUER BG 20 H drilling rig, an RG 22 and RG 16 from RTG Rammtechnik GmbH and a KR 806 anchor drilling rig from KLEMM Bohrtechnik GmbH will also be used among other equipment.

With over 25 years of experience, BAUER Resources GmbH’s Bauer Umwelt business unit is one of the leading specialists in site remediation, both in the domestic market and internationally. An expert in pollution reduction, the business unit offers a diverse range of services for all environmental issues within German-speaking Europe and neighboring countries. Organized by region, BAUER Resources GmbH concentrates on projects across the entire world together with its subsidiaries and has extensive skills in the fields of water treatment, automation, environmental remediation and waste management, drilling technologies as well as well-drilling and reed-bed treatment plants.

Further information/Weitere Informationen:
BAUER AG
www.bauer.de

For 36 days, hundreds of rescue workers fought for the lives of numerous buried miners in a gypsum mine in the Shandong province of eastern China. On 29th January 2016, four of them were eventually saved through a vertical emergency shaft, not least thanks to the drilling rigs from BAUER Maschinen Group that were in operation (Figure 1).

The disaster in the gypsum mine which buried 29 miners occurred on 25th December 2015. Eleven of them were rescued immediately, though one died during the accident. 13 miners are still missing. Four miners were able to escape to an enclosed space and signaled from there that they were alive. During the very first days after the collapse of the mine, a small supply hole was drilled so that food and clothing could be supplied.

The necessary rescue equipment was also sent straight to the mine. The most important system was a deep drilling rig which, under the type designation PRAKLA RB-T 90, was designed and built in Germany a few years ago for application in China during mine collapses; six machines were delivered. The concept was developed in the Bauer Equipment segment. No low-loader is required; instead, the unit is constructed on a trailer with four axles and only needs a tractor rig. This means that the machine can be put into operation quickly (Figure 2). The China Rescue Organisation holds the units at various locations in China in kind of standby mode. When it was required at the end of December, the drilling rig was ready for immediate use after a year on standby.

Two additional Bauer units were also in operation to drill the emergency shaft, a BG 26 and a BG 38. With these, pre-drilled holes were bored, before the RB-T 90 rig drilled down more than 200 m. The difficult nature of the geology posed a large technical challenge for the rescue mission, as the ground was very instable due to the various layers of material, consistencies, water inflow and sink-holes. At first, the hole could not be stabilized and in the end, casings had to be used to support the hole.

A large team from Bauer was in operation, which comprised among others of many specialists who were already involved in the development of the RB-T 90 deep drilling rig.

Further information/Weitere Informationen:
Bauer AG
www.bauer.de