NEOM PROJECT

GENERAL DEFINITION

NEOM is the planned independent economic zone in the Northwest of Saudi Arabia. It is born based on the ambition of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 to see the country develop into a pioneering and thriving model of excellence in various and important areas of life. 

The vision of NEOM is “The land of the future, where the greatest minds and best talents are empowered to embody pioneering ideas and exceed boundaries in a world inspired by imagination.” 

Sixteen sectors are driving the implementation of NEOM’s vision: energy, water, mobility, biotech, food, manufacturing, media, entertainment/culture/fashion, technology/digital, tourism, sport, design/construction, services, health/well-being, education, and livability. Each sector will become an incorporated company under NEOM. Currently ENOWA is one of the first incorporated companies to be formed in NEOM which includes the Energy and Water sectors. NEOM will also be divided to regions in which some sector will service the region in the future. Current publicly announced regions include The Line, Oxagon and Trojena. 

The planned 2020- 2030 NEOM Water infrastructure will include an estimated 31 Water Recycling Plants (WRPs) and Water Recycling and Recovery Plants (WRRPs) serving a population of approximately 3 million by 2030. 

NEOM resides in the North‐western region of Saudi Arabia, and spans over 26,500 km².

Start Date	:	21/10/2021
Completion Date	:	30/01/2022

To support the development of critical wastewater infrastructure, the design and construction of a water recycling plant (WRP) at NEOM Circular City (NIC) Village serving predominantly domestic populations with average flows of 4,877 m³/d by 2024 according to the NIC Village Masterplan design team is required to support a key regional development. Beyond 2024, the population will plateau according to the NIC Village Masterplan design team and NIC proponents.

• The plant shall be a Food Chain Rector based treatment system plant with appropriate pretreatment as required.
• The plant shall be designed to accommodate a wide range of flows as populations increase throughout the asset life.
• Shall be designed such that the process is as efficient as possible utilizing the minimum consumption of power. The use of features such as solar power lighting for the site, night‐time maintenance activities are strongly recommended.
• The plants use of chemicals shall be minimised minimized.
• The plant produces final effluent suitable and safe for reuse as irrigation water and with no negative impact to the NEOM environment. No environmental discharges shall be allowed.
• Waste Sludge from the treatment process shall be either stored or thickened up to 5% DS. Appropriate and safe storage and transfer shall be provided for disposal at other facilities within NEOM with minimal impact to the environment.
• The Design is developed to fit the NEOM image and standards including minimization of visual impact by being constructed mostly underground; the consultant shall consider housing the plants within buildings where practicably possible. The emphasis should be on housing process units above ground with inter connecting pipework also located above ground. An iconic design should be adopted to blend with NEOM’s landscape. The building exterior, landscape, and public realm must match the guidelines provided in the approved detailed NIC Master Plan.
• Particular attention shall be given to ensure that zero odor and low noise nuisance occurs within the adjacent developments from the water recycling plants.
• The plant shall be robust and highly reliable with minimal requirements for operator intervention and maintenance requirements. The process design of the entire WRP Project, shall incorporate sufficient redundancy, to ensure, that a continuous, steady state treatment is maintained throughout the year even during chemical cleaning or back wash or other maintenance activities are executed.
• The building shall include a visitor and educational center embedded within the plant. The building shall be partially buried and designed in an aesthetically pleasing manner, blending into the surrounding environment.

  1. NIC VILLAGE WRP SITE SPECIFICS

NEOM Circler City (NIC) occupies some 125,000 hectares to the southwest of the NEOM region and is one such New Future community. The Circle is the primary settlement within the NIC region, occupying some 3,060ha, which approximately half is on land. The Circle represents the industrial  heart of NEOM and is focused around a high-performance port and logistics hub, bordered by manufacturing and R&D facilities. There will be a WRP in the Island Village to treat wastewater effluent from Village.

NEOM Circular City Village STP will be a treatment plant serving purely domestic catchments from zone F.

Table 1: Summary of NIC Village Catchment Flow Characteristics

	2022	2023	2024	2026	2028	2030
Resident Population, hesads	0	950	7,898	14,744	14,744	18,000
Non-Resident Population, heads	0	0	1,768	1,768	1,768	1,768
Population Equivalent, PE	0	950	9,666	16,512	16,512	19,768
Avarage Daily flow, m3/d	0	238	2,352	4,063	4,063	4,877
Max Daily Flow, m3/d	0	356	3,528	6,095	6,095	7,316
Peak hourly Flow, m3/h	0	30	294	508	508	610

The WRP shall be designed to treat average flows in line with high level phasing presented in Table 1 above. Special consideration shall be given during design to allow for initial low flow at the start of operations. Detailed phasing will be provided once FEED design commences. The design shall also include sufficient peak flow capacity to accommodate the flow of used water from the catchment at any time. The minimum peak factor to be applied is 3.

The consultant’s scope of work shall include:

• Review of Geotechnical information and summary of findings. Consideration for particular materials and concrete mix based on high chloride and sulphate levels in water samples.
• Constructability review for proposed site based on ground conditions, water table, and excavation requirements. Description of construction techniques, methods and indicative Schedule
• High level structural design for building to determine column thickness, foundation  design, supports, static loads etc. Consideration for hydrostatic loads and soil pressure surcharge loads.
• High level electrical design based on motor load schedule and P&ID. Single line electircal wiring diagrams and electrical design requirements.
• Fire safety assessment and design for fire fighting equipment. According to Saudi Building Code SBC 801-18 and NFPA 820

Start Date	:	14/09/2022
Completion Date	:	24/01/2023

Al Bada is being developed as an accelerated Wastewater Treatment, Recycling and Innovation Hub to address wastewater treatment needs in the immediate and short-term, minimizing treatment cost, transport and environmental impact.

The existing Al Bada WRP is being rehabilitated and will provide wastewater treatment starting in Q3 of 2022 while regional WRPs are developed. The OXAGON Regional Biosolids Treatment Facility (RBTF) which was previously the Al Bada RBTF, will be part of the OXAGON WRRP. The RBTF will be a permanent asset processing biosolids in NEOM sometime in 2025; the expected commissioning date. In the meantime, an Interim Biosolids Facility is needed to treat all the biosolids that is being generated in NEOM. Therefore, additional enhancements are needed in Al Bada WRP to treat biosolids while the OXAGON WRRP gets designed and built. Additionally, there is an immediate need to design and build an Interim Innovation facility while the permanent innovation center is built in OXAGON WRRP sometime late 2025. The Interim Innovation Facility will allow NEOM to pilot technologies that will then be deployed in the Line and other NEOM regions. The Interim Innovation Facility will be located in Al Bada WRP as well. 

Due to the rejection of the Al Bada RBTF and Innovation Center Land Use Permit by the NEOM Chairman, these interim facilities in Al Bada WRP are needed to ensure NEOM Water meets the following objectives: 

1. Prevent continuous disposal of biosolids in the NEOM region as a measure to protect the environment 
2. Pilot innovative wastewater treatment technologies to deploy in the first modules of the Line and upcoming regions 

Although the Al Bada RBTF will be relocated to OXAGON WRRP, FEED design inputs from the project shall inform the treatment capacity of the Al Bada Interim Biosolids Facility in Al Bada WRP. Similarly, the Al Bada Innovation Center design shall inform the Al Bada Interim Innovation Facility layout and facility. The Al Bada Innovation Center Pilot Technology Optioneering Study and Business Plan will also inform the treatment technologies to be selected for the Interim Innovation Facility, and hence the design of the Interim Biosolids Facility. Further details on the mentioned projects and studies are summarized in the sections below.

 

 

	Unit	Basis of Design
		Minimum	Average	Maximum
Unthickened Sludge
Unthickened Sludge Flow	m3/d	416	1,806	2,512
Dry Solids Load	kgDS/d	2,888	12,522	17,417
Sludge Concentration	%DS	0.7%	0.7%	0.7%
Sludge Density	kg/m3	1,001	1,001	1,001
Dewatered Sludge
Dewatered Sludge Flow	m3/d	13	21	30
Dry Solids Load	kgDS/d	3,477	5,524	7,754
Sludge Concentration	%DS	25%	25%	25%
Sludge Density	kg/m3	1,035	1,035	1,035

 

The consultant’s scope of work shall include:

1. Architectural Reports
2. Interior Architecture Report
3. Structural Engineering Report
4. Mechanical Engineering Report
5. Mechanical Engineering Drawings
6. Electrical Engineering Report
7. Electrical Engineering Drawing
8. Earthworks Report
9. Wet Infrastructure Utilities Report
10. Wet Infrastructure Utilities Drawing
11. Dry Infrastructure Utilities Drawing
12. Dry Infrastructure Utilities Report
13. Landscape Report
14. Landscape Drawing

Start Date	:	17/11/2022
Completion Date	:	27/03/2023

Shushah Island WRP is being developed to treat the wastewater generated in Shushah Island development area, minimizing treatment cost, transport and environmental impact.

The design and construction of a WRP is needed to support a key regional development on Shushah Island. 

The WRP will receive domestic wastewater with average flows of about 1,000 m³/day. 

Indicative location of the WRP has been provided by the Master Planning team and are shown in figure  below.

Figure 12: Proposed Water Recyling Facilities

The plant will be equipped with a wastewater tanker receiving facility while the wastewater network is developed. 

The wastewater received will generate both recycled water and biosolids. The recycled water will be utilized on the island as landscape irrigation water and distributed initially through trucks while the recycled water network is constructed. Biosolids generated from the WRP will be barged off the island for further treatment at OXAGON WRRP. All trucking and barge activities will be monitored through a cloud-based system. Electric trucks and low-emission trucks will be utilized for all wastewater and biosolids movements. 

This FEED design shall include process engineering, production of layouts, high-quality architectural renders and production of tender documentation. At this point, the project will be handed over to Projects for implementation. 

In accordance with the water recycling strategy for island treatment, an MBR treatment process has been pre-selected on the basis of minimizing footprint and reliable production of high-quality recycled water in an area of high environmental sensitivity. However, the consultant should also execute a high-level verification/justification, whether MBR treatment technology is the most appropriate one for this project. 

Wastewater will be conveyed from the residential areas via a combination of gravity sewerage systems and pumping stations. Similarly, recycled water shall be conveyed to landscaped areas for irrigation purposes. The network infrastructure packages will be delivered by others and interface coordination will be required during implementation. Greywater separation is proposed in DMP but will likely not be implemented. 

The treatment process requirements are presented below: 

• MBR based treatment process with appropriate pre-treatment. However, the consultant still needs to execute a high-level verification/justification for the most appropriate technology, for this project 
• The process shall be designed as efficient as possible utilizing minimum consumption of power. Opportunities for utilizing green energy will be identified during detailed design 
• The plant’s use of chemicals shall be minimized 
• The plant produces recycled water suitable and safe for reuse as unrestricted irrigation water and with no negative impact to the NEOM environment 
• Biosolids from the treatment process shall be minimized and conditioned such that it shall be collected easily, dewatered for transport to other facilities within NEOM with minimal impact to the environment. 
• The Design is developed to fit the Shushah Island design guidelines and standards including minimization of visual impact. This may require the WRP to be completely buried, partially buried or screened from public view. This particular aspect will be explored during FEED design 
• Particular attention shall be given to ensure that zero odor and low noise nuisance occurs within the developments from the water recycling plants 
• The plant shall be robust and highly reliable and automated with minimal requirements for operator intervention and maintenance requirements 

Figure 13: Daily WW generation on Shushah Island

The consultant’s scope of work shall include:

1. Structural Engineering Report
2. Mechanical Engineering Report
3. Mechanical Engineering Drawings
4. Electrical Engineering Report
5. Electrical Engineering Drawing
6. Wet Infrastructure Utilities Report
7. Wet Infrastructure Utilities Drawing
8. Dry Infrastructure Utilities Drawing
9. Dry Infrastructure Utilities Report

Figure 14: Tank-1 SAP2000 Model 3D View

 

Start Date	:	17/11/2022
Completion Date	:	24/01/2023

Neom Oxagon Village Water Recyling project is a revised version of the NIC Village WRP Project.

The consultant’s scope of work shall include:

• High level structural design for building to determine column thickness, foundation  design, supports, static loads etc. Consideration for hydrostatic loads and soil pressure surcharge loads.
• High level electrical design based on motor load schedule and P&ID. Single line electircal wiring diagrams and electrical design requirements.
• Fire safety assessment and design for fire fighting equipment. According to Saudi Building Code SBC 801-18 and NFPA 820

Figure 3: ANO1 Load Case Scenario Outpu