Engineer Gholam-Reza Bahman-Nia"s project, titled "Taking Advantage of Solar Dew in Refining Industrial and Refinery Waste Waters" won special award of 19th International Oil Congress Monday.

Bahman-Nia"s project is aimed at solving the problem of water scarcity at offshore oil platforms and at industrial regions and oil fields at hot and dry regions.

Bahman-Nia who is Deputy Head of Sarkhoun-Qeshm Gas Refinery"s Operations Department and has in practice checked the efficiency of his project said in an interview with IRNA reporter in Madrid, "Large scale implementation of this project will enable industrialists to take advantage of major part of water they have used, and to return those waters to irrigation networks."

The 19th International Oil Congress chose Bahman-Nia"s research project on Solar Dew as the top project among those presented by researchers from across the world from the viewpoint of its environment protection value.

Spain"s King Juan Carlos awarded the Special Award of the event to Bahman-Nia during the opening ceremony of the International Oil Congress Monday.

Only four innovative projects out of those presented by researchers from 60 countries received the special awards of the congress.

Speaking on special features of his project, Bahman-Nia reiterated, "This project functions needless of fossil fuels, merely taking advantage of cheap wind and solar energies, and can particularly in hot and dry regions provide a part of the needed water from waste waters of the industries."

Pointing out that the project has been implemented relying on operation of the Iranian Oil Industries Research Institute, he said, "By implementing this project the waste waters of oil refineries that contain oil products will be turned into sweet water that can be reused for agricultural and industrial purposes."

He added, "A six-member group successfully implemented this project that cost us some 2,500 million rials (around US $300,000)." Bahman-Nia pointed out that no Iranian had thus far received any of the previous International Oil Congress awards.

PIN/IRNA