The joint venture of Kuwait’s Khalid Al Kharafi and Finland’s Lamor Corporation is understood to have set a world record by bio-remediating more than 2.3 million tonnes of oil-contaminated soil in just a yearThe soil had oil contamination of between 1% and 5% and was processed across two remediation projects starting in April last year.The two remediation projects were:North Kuwait Excavation, Transportation & Remediation (NKETR) A – Sabria: Kharafi (Kuwait)/Lamor (Finland) – $194mSouth Kuwait Excavation, Transportation & Remediation (SKETR) A – Greater Burgan: Kharafi/Lamor – $197mDeputy CEO of Khalid Al Kharafi, Khaled Tubaileh, said: “The sustainable approach adopted in our Kuwait projects allowed us not only to reduce treatment time from six to four months on average, but also to minimise the environmental impact associated to our logistics including the amount of water used to treat contaminated soils, which reduces the carbon footprint impact and is in line with international sustainability policies.”The joint venture is also using mechanical oily soil washing plants for both projects.These have successfully treated soils with contamination levels between 5% and 15% and the first batches have been reduced to levels below 1%, according to Tubaileh.The two contracts were awarded to the joint venture by state-owned Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) as part of the Kuwait Environmental Remediation Programme (Kerp) in June 2021.Kerp was established by the UN Compensation Commission to allow Kuwait to address the ecological damage resulting from the 1990-91 Gulf War.For each zone, Khalid Ali al-Kharafi & Brothers has procured remediation machinery from Ireland’s CDE Group at a cost of $15m. (ICE KUWAIT)

Fonte notizia: Meed