Water Withdrawal and Consumption

Water Withdrawal and Consumption refers to the quantity of and sources of the water used in our operations.

GRI 103-01,

103-02, 103-03, 303-01: Management approach

We use water as a coolant throughput for Refinery processes to achieve the desired temperature for process operations. We monitor the return water temperature to meet the statutory requirements for water discharge. We try to minimise our groundwater abstraction, limiting its use to the Refinery cooling towers make-up where seawater would otherwise potentially cause corrosion.

GRI 303-03: Water withdrawal

The GRI Standards define ‘fresh water’ as water with Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of less than 1,000 mg/l. Other sources of water with TDS greater than 1,000 mg/l are referred to by the GRI Standards as ‘other water’.

Groundwater is referred to as ‘well water’, which is supplied to the Refinery cooling towers as make-up water. The withdrawal flowrate is calculated based on the approximate circulation rates, considering evaporation and windage losses within the cooling towers. No changes have occurred for the estimated cooling tower circulation rates, therefore the calculated reported numbers are constant from 2018 to 2021.

Sea water withdrawal rates are based on the pump capacities in the High Lift Pump House, which supplies sea water as the cooling medium to the various Refinery units and also as feed to the desalination units in the Utilities Plant.

GRI 303-05: Water consumption

Groundwater consumption is assumed to be equal to the groundwater withdrawal due to the absence of flowmeters. As indicated in disclosure 303-03, the calculation is based on the approximate circulation rates, considering evaporation and windage losses within the cooling towers.

Sea water is fed to the desalination units and a reverse osmosis plant to produce flash evaporated distillate, which serves as boiler feed water to the steam generators/boilers and as feed to the Drinking Water Plant. The data is based on the daily and monthly average flowmeter readings.