Every year, World Water Day provides an opportunity to celebrate the importance of water and reflect on our water conservation progress. This year, the United Nations theme for World Water Day is “Accelerating Change,” exploring how each and every one of us can make a difference by changing the way we use, consume and manage water in our lives.
The value of water to our business is clear: Our global production of nitrogen, methanol, and hydrogen products – 16.7 million metric tons – relies on water. We use approximately 87 million cubic meters of water per year in our production processes for cooling, steam generation, and in our downstream aqueous products.
But water is more than just a key part of our production processes – it is a critical resource for all aspects of life and the economy, such as growing food, producing goods we need, and drinking water. Many of the world’s critical water systems have become stressed, resulting in disruption in key infrastructure like power generation, industrial production, and threatening food security. At the current consumption rate, this situation will only get worse, which will have detrimental impacts on food security, human lives and industrial productions, especially in water stressed areas. Solutions must come from all sectors to conserve and restore the water ecosystems that we rely on.
That’s why we set ourselves the ambitious goal of eliminating the use of freshwater in our high-water stress regions by 2023. We are proud to have achieved this goal in October 2022. We no longer rely on freshwater at any of our sites in Egypt, Algeria, and the United Arab Emirates, which represent 35% of our global production capacity. Instead, we use desalinated, purified brackish waste and direct seawater, leaving freshwater for crops and human consumption.
We achieved this by investing in reverse osmosis and seawater desalination units on-site at all our MENA locations, as well as investing in water polishing units to further improve our water efficiency and chemical consumption reduction. We have also found ways to improve our water efficiency by implementing wastewater treatment and closed-loop systems to reuse and recycle water and reduce overall consumption of water.
We are proud of the progress we have made in minimizing our water consumption and impact on freshwater resources, and know there is still more work to be done. We’ll continue to challenge ourselves and are committed to using the best technology available to ensure responsible water management in our operations.
Together, let’s #BeTheChange and work towards a brighter, more sustainable future for ourselves and future generations.
Image: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
