El Kerma Wastewater Plant
Wastewater treatment + reuse, 270,100 m3/day nominal for 1,526,000 population equivalent at the 2020 horizon, treating about 90,000 m3/day in practice; the largest wastewater plant in Algeria in Algeria.
The record
- Country
- Algeria
- Location
- Oran
- Coordinates
- 35.608, -0.586
- Technology
- Wastewater treatment + reuse
- Capacity
- 270,100 m3/day nominal for 1,526,000 population equivalent at the 2020 horizon, treating about 90,000 m3/day in practice; the largest wastewater plant in Algeria
- Capital cost
- —
- Stage
- Operational
- Owner or client
- Ministère des Ressources en Eau
- Contractor
- —
- Operator
- SEOR (Société de l'Eau et de l'Assainissement d'Oran)
- Finance
- 7 billion Algerian dinars
- Award or start year
- 2006
- Commissioned
- 2009-05
Record last checked 2026-09-18.
History
- 2006-09
Execution began
- 2009-05
Provisional acceptance
- 2011-05
Final acceptance and transfer to SEOR
- 2014-08
Aeration basin failure
- 2015-12
Two basins repaired
- 2016-01
Returned to service
- 2025-06
Two billion dinar rehabilitation under way to reach design output
Sources
7 references
Every field in the record above is taken from the references below. A field that none of them confirms prints as a dash.
- SEOR, Stations d'epuration. seor.dz.
- Medium-load activated sludge with screening, grit and grease removal, four primary settlers, biological aeration basins, secondary clarifiers, chlorine disinfection, gravity and mechanical sludge thickening, anaerobic digestion, mechanical dewatering and liming; nominal flow 270,100 m3/day for 1,526,000 population equivalent at 2020 with design loads of 91,560 kg/day of BOD5, 228,910 kg/day of COD and 96,860 kg/day of suspended solids; current inflow 90,000 m3/day at 315 mg/l BOD5, 700 mg/l COD and 330 mg/l suspended solids; project value 7 billion dinars, execution from 1 September 2006, provisional acceptance 15 May 2009, two years of operation, final acceptance and transfer to SEOR 15 May 2011, an incident in the aeration basins on 4 August 2014, repair of two basins completed 27 December 2015 and return to service 14 January 2016; treated water is to irrigate about 6,700 ha of the Mleta plain and the sludge is destined for agriculture.
- The site must be requested over HTTP/1.1; the default request is reset.
- AFEID and COSTEA, Reutilisation des eaux usees en agriculture, rapport de synthese Algerie (Mar 2022). comite-costea.fr.
- Page 32 records 1,526,000 population equivalent and biogas output of 7,200 Nm3/day, only 17 per cent of nominal capacity, with the surplus flared; the plant is in the European Union funded EAU II biogas programme with Baraki and Annaba.
- Ouest Tribune, Travaux d'entretien de la station d'epuration d'El Karma (Jun 2025). ouest-tribune.dz.
- MENA Water Review major projects register and PPP pipeline — compiled from procurer publications, development-bank project pages and trade reporting; each record names its source.
A 2 billion dinar rehabilitation from the water resources ministry, 1.5 billion for a 9 km pumping main and 0.5 billion for equipment, to reach the design output; about 20,000 m3/day currently reaches farmland. Coordinates from OpenStreetMap way 179631599, tagged man_made=wastewater_plant. The plant is spelled both El Kerma and El Karma in Algerian sources; El Kerma is the commune name and is used here.