At the forefront of sustainability

Oman

Wael Ojjeh, chairman of the board of Green Lands, and Dr. Muhammed Askaf, the company’s general manager, talk to The Energy Year about Green Lands’ cutting-edge technologies and solutions for treating and recycling wastewater and industrial process water and in waste-to-renewable energy, all in support of Oman’s Vision 2040.

Can you give us an overview of the drivers behind the establishment of the company and why you chose Oman?
Wael OJJEH: Green Lands was founded in 2022, with the support of our teams of experts from Western Europe who have wide and long-built experience in the renewable energy and biogas industry.
We chose Oman after a careful and proficient study of the region, as we already have experience in the Middle East and East Africa. We determined that Oman could be our regional base for many reasons, such as its geographical position as a connecting point between several continents and its local long-term strategic planning for the coming decades, as well as being a partner in very promising and expanding regional markets.
However, we ended up opting to stay in Oman because of its favourable business environment and encouraging investment law, and its being very active in terms of attracting new, dynamic, foreign players such as ourselves.
Oman is a country that is consistently dependent on oil and gas, but it is full of alternative opportunities – as seen in the important efforts made by the government to develop renewable and alternative energies, a promising market segment with potentially very interesting margins.
Thanks also to our mother company’s expertise and its long-standing collaboration and solid network with R&D departments and universities all around Europe, we have the right technology and a high level of know-how that can help us replicate what we did in Western Europe here in Oman to improve the clean eco-treatment processes of water and wastes and contribute to creating a recycled, circular, carbon-neutral economy.

What is the core of your business portfolio?
Dr. Muhammed ASKAF: We have advanced laboratories where we developed and patented cutting-edge methods for extracting heavy metals from industrial and wastewater plants – purifying and making them recyclable via our fully computerised processes and nano polymers, which treat them without any chlorine or other chemical additions.
Then, in the energy industry, we have worked on managing industrial hazardous waste and most importantly converting organic waste into renewable energy, with the capacity to turn sludge and wet organic waste into different types of oils and eco-fuels.
This is something revolutionary and which fits well the current demand of the market, oriented towards more sustainability. If we came here five or six years ago, our products and services offer would most likely have been less positively received, but now with Oman’s Vision 2040 targets and the commitment to be a net-zero nation by 2050, companies are much keener to adopt the solutions we provide. In talking with some of them, we realised that they are willing to develop, adopt and shift their classic methods into ours, which represents a good starting point for us to kick-off collaborations.

What are your expectations for your future activities within Oman, particularly with regard to contracts and clients?
MA: From the beginning we were focusing on finding reliable and strong partners who could support and integrate with us. We got onboard a local engineering partner, together with whom we aim to lead the company to the next level, starting to get contracts and clients by taking advantage of the already demonstrated interest they have in our activities and new technologies.
We’ve already had discussions with OPAL, PDO, Be’ah and OQ, with some negotiations in place. For instance, we spoke with OQ representatives during Oman Sustainability Week who told us that they have few locations with H2S issues. We presented them our remediation and air treatment solutions and we have been invited to visit their sites by the end of April 2023. Once we get the data, we will analyse them and design a tailor-made approach to provide them with the right size and type of filtration reactor to solve their problems by the most efficient, environmentally friendly and cost-effective smart solutions and without emissions or side products.
Our first deodorising unit is now in the manufacturing process and will be installed in one of Muscat’s WWTPs [wastewater treatment plants] to eliminate the odour that comes as a byproduct from wastewater treatment plants, landfills, lagoons and stagnant water and sewage systems and convert it into a nice smell.

Can you give us examples of your cutting-edge technologies and the key benefits of their deployment?
WO: We developed our technology in-house in Sweden, Germany, France and Norway, where we’ve built a well-functioning network of companies as we’ve been supplying them with the methane we produce from one of our biogas factories to help them to carry out experiments on an “odour-killing system” and now we are representing them in GCC and Middle EastOman is a country that is consistently dependent on oil and gas, but it is full of alternative opportunities countries for their excellent multi-layer reactors.
Besides that, we have already tested a new generation of nano polymers which can reduce the time for sedimentation of the sludge from wastewater within a few seconds and at the same time can treat the waste and clean it from the heavy metals, which means huge saving in capex and opex for these facilities. The demand for this kind of product is rising all around the globe and we plan to deploy it here as soon as possible because we see promising opportunities stemming in the local Omani markets and even in the regional markets.
We have already succeeded in treating many issues for WWTPs in Muscat, and we plan to get new clients on board soon.
Finally, another product we are working on to bring from Scandinavia to Oman is the first portable high flow rate solution for oil sludge. This system is widely needed because it reduces the cleaning time from months and years down to weeks only. It is a new generation of compact centrifuge, dewatering, separation and heating systems all in one.
Such a revolutionary system can stop the pollution from lagoons, pits and basins near refineries. We are collaborating to treat the oil sludge onsite, without the need to take it to the stationary treatment plant. A further added value is that you can treat as much as 30-35 cubic metres per hour of oil sludge.

Given the soon-to-be-commissioned OQ8 Refinery in Duqm, what opportunities do you see arising for your operations there?
MA: We went to Duqm to show how we plan to start manufacturing our systems locally there. The authorities really welcomed us, giving us the area required with a very flexible tax relief to kick off the project. We noticed that the authorities are very careful about environmental practices there, asking us in particular about what our role would be in terms of remediation services – in the event of oil spills, for example. This underlines how the country is a promising one for our operations and to what extent they want to start co-operating with us.

What do you see as Green Lands’ competitive advantages?
MA: We are a very open and flexible company, working across the whole spectrum of waste-to-energy, being able to perform on different sites and looking forward to finding new partners, either local or international, to really start deploying our solutions in Oman and showing the benefits they can bring. We just need to build the confidence around our products, highlighting our track record.
We are sure that, starting with Muscat, we will then reach other industrial locations, from Sohar to Salalah. Our plan is to open branches in Salalah and Duqm, and in the future start looking at other GCC countries.
Oman is at the forefront of sustainability trends, keen to involve players of different sizes and backgrounds to contribute to the energy transition path the country is moving along, and we are ready to participate and take up our role successfully.

About Green Lands
Green Lands provides sustainable smart solutions for environmental problems in the oil and gas sector with hazardous gases and odour treatment. The company’s main project is to construct and operate the first mega biogas production plant in the GCC and the Middle East which can convert and mix all types of organic wastes into biogas, eco fertiliser and energy via a completely closed and recycled process using biological degradation. This prevents burning and landfilling of the organic wastes. A coming second phase will see the company convert the biogas into different types of biofuels and even green hydrogen.

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