First-of-its-kind in the region, Mazoon Diary’s biogas plant has begun operations in Al Sinainah in Oman. The switching-on ceremony for the plant was held under the presence of Dr Hamad bin Said al Aufi, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, and the Board of Directors.
The plant, which is part of Mazoon Diary’s strategy to enhance its waste management efficiency by adopting environmentally sustainable solutions, uses waste from cows to produce gas as an alternative source of energy to operate some facilities at the factory.
With this plant, Mazoon Diary has become the first diary company in the region to adopt clean technology on such a big scale to harness sustainable solutions for the diary sector.
According to Yousuf bin Khamis al Fazari, Corporate Affairs Manager the company is committed to adopting environmentally friendly solutions through waste management, and proud to be able to open the first biogas plant in the region using cow waste. “The biogas plant will be used to produce methane gas that will be used to operate equipment at the plant, with plans to power even more of the plant with increased herd in the future. The first phase of the project will include 12,000 cows that are expected to produce about 225 tonnes of fertiliser per day,” he added.
Engineer Hazza bin Abdullah al Yahya, a member of projects and maintenance team, explaining the process, said, “The farm currently includes 16 barns equipped with a special pond to collect cow waste, which will be transported through special containers to the biogas plant on a daily basis”
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According to him, the plant will be able to reduce its dependency on fossil fuel as the number of cows increases and this will expand the plant’s capacity to contribute to waste management and drive up operational efficiency of the plant. The Diary is also planning to tackle other waste management issues such as plastic and water management through recycling of treated water from the sewage plant for irrigation.
In February earlier this year, the Diary marked a significant milestone with arrival of 1,600 cows from Australia to the state-of-the-art dairy farm in Al Sunaynah.
The 15sqkm fully-integrated farm, centralised processing plant and other facilities in Al Sunaynah are expected to meet the market demand for high-quality, fresh dairy products with the Diary announcing that its products would be available in the Oman from this month onwards.
