MRPL to increase use of treated sewage water

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) will increase it usage of treated sewage water from the present 2.5 million gallons a day (MGD) to at over 4 MGD in future.

“Later, it will be increased to 6 MGD by working along with the MSEZ (Mangaluru Special Economic Zone) and Mangaluru City Corporation,” M Venkatesh, MRPL managing director, said on Saturday.

He said that some units of MRPL were shut down in summer due to water scarcity. “Water for domestic consumption will increase as the city grows, and the demand for water in summer will also increase. At present, MRPL depends on 13 MGD water from rivers. Freshwater consumption will reduce drastically once the desalination plant is ready and the intake capacity is increased,” Venkatesh explained.

“Sea water desalination project is on track and the scheduled deadline to attain mechanical completion is August 2020. To meet the water requirement in the summer of March 2020 to June 2020, the MRPL is attempting to hire containerised desalination units to ensure that the refinery is not shut down,” he added.

“The desalination unit will commission from 2021. Initially, the MRPL will get 35 MGD water and the infrastructure of the desalination unit is built for 70 MGD water. MRPL will open 50 to 100 retail outlets across the state by March 31, 2021. We expect to commission at least five more retail outlets by the end of financial year 2019-20,” Venkatesh said.

Landslides

On the landslides damaging the pipe rack of the third phase of the refinery complex in the month of August, Vinay Kumar, director (Refinery), said that the work to strengthen the soil at the places of landslide has been taken up. All preventive measures were taken to ensure that such incidents do not recur in the future.

“Further, experts from NITK and IIT, Roorkee, were also engaged in the study of the sloppy terrain where the refineries of MRPL is situated. IIT, Roorkee, Civil Engineering Department, has expertise in slope protection and they have worked on this area in Uttarakhand. The team will undertake a detailed study to find out if there are any problems and what steps should be taken to check landslides at the site will be taken up by the team,” he added.