Kuwait as a pioneer in wastewater treatment

What have been the pillars of success for Hydrotek Engineering?
Abdulaziz M. AL-HAJERI: Hydrotek belongs to the Injazat Holding Company (our Al Hajeri family holding company), which also owns Mohamad Nasser Al Hajeri Company (MNH), established in 1946, and Greenfields Agriculture Company, established in 1981. Throughout our history, our constant has been our commitment to quality in all of our companies and all of our activities. Kuwait is a small country, and everyone knows each other. Our reputation is very important to us; we always aim for excellence.

What has been Hydrotek’s growth strategy in the past years?
Salim M. MURTADA: Hydrotek identifies itself as an electro-mechanical company, and all its current activities fall more or less within this identity. Hydrotek started as a trading company in equipment related to plumbing and fire protection. It then expanded into equipment for infrastructure, municipal, environmental and irrigation projects, in addition to electrical solutions and residential systems. We have grown horizontally because Kuwait is relatively a small market when compared to countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
About 12 years ago, we started our contracting activity in the infrastructure sector covering mechanical, electrical and instrumentation (telemetry and SCADA) works and then moved into commercial construction projects where we covered the entire MEP [mechanical, electrical and plumbing] scope including HVAC, plumbing and fire protection, electrical, ELV (extra low voltage), steam, fuel, and swimming pool, spa, and fountain works.
Currently, we have three business lines: trading, contracting and fabrication. In our workshop, we conduct mechanical and electrical fabrication. We also have a large team to carry out facility management and maintenance activities.
We also have an environmental division where we offer sewage treatment plants, reverse osmosis units and water treatment solutions.
Hydrotek also specialises in data centre projects, where it has achieved Tier III certifications for the data centres it constructed and has also certified its own team with Uptime Institute to handle such projects.

What was the economic rationale for expanding your activities into a full-fledged contracting company?
SM: Our strategy was to add value to our clients. We were able to put our expertise, knowledge about the various equipment providers we represent and the availability of our trained maintenance technicians to their service, and it worked. Hydrotek is today one of the main players in the market, whether in the MEP sector or in the infrastructure sector.

How important is the wastewater treatment sector for Hydrotek?
SM: Kuwait is one of the pioneers in wastewater treatment in the whole region. The sanitary engineering sector of the Ministry of Public Works [MPW] is very active. It is keen on achieving 100% treatment of all waste water, along with the re-utilisation of the treated effluent in the irrigation of landscape areas along highways, in cities and in farming areas, in addition to some applications such as district cooling and in the oil sector.
In Kuwait, there are two types of treated effluent: the tertiary treated sewage effluent [TSE], and the RO [reverse osmosis] TSE, which is basically taking the tertiary treated sewage effluent and passing it through reverse osmosis so it becomes acceptable for use in farming areas.
Hydrotek has had a share in most of these projects be it for the different phases of TSE utilisation for the irrigation of highways (phases B1, B2, B3, C1 and D1 – currently under construction) or for the distribution of RO TSE to the Wafra and Abdaly farming areas, or even the utilisation of RO TSE for cooling tower make-up on the new campus of Sabah Al Salem University.

What are your key objectives for 2023?
SM: We currently have some projects which we would like to complete satisfactorily; the New Palace of Justice in Kuwait City (Phase 1), the Expansion of the Scientific Center in Salmiya, and the MPW SE/158 (Area D1) in Sulaibiya are all important projects to complete in 2023. We have also recently started a couple of new projects which we aim to get on track.
In addition, we are targeting a start in the oil and gas sector, which is also an area that we are slowly moving into. It is quite demanding, and our policy is to always make sure that we are ready for anything before we venture into it, so we are taking it one step at a time.
We are now pursuing the approvals in the oil sector categories related to our activities, which are prerequisites for us to start there. We hope we are able to achieve these approvals in 2023.