Calgary-based Pure Technologies Ltd., yesterday said the green lights are back on for its work on a man-made river project in Libya.
The announcement was made after Pure Technologies received $16 million in payment from the North African country. The payment constitutes 70 per cent of the value of previous shipments made under a $30 million contract awarded to the Calgary tech company in 2010.
The company’s patented proprietary inspection and monitoring technologies are being used to ensure the integrity of the pre-stressed pipeline network of Libya’s Man-Made-River (MMR) project.
The artificial river is considered the world’s largest irrigation project. Its underground network of pipes is about 2,820 kms long. It consists of more than 1,300 wells, most of them buried 500 meters underground. The network supplies some 6,500,000 m3 of water each day to the cities such as Tripoli, Benghazi, and Sirte.
From 1999 through 2001, the MMR experienced five ruptures on the network, which was approximately 10 years old at the time. Pure Technologies was contacted by what was then the Great Man-Made River Authority (GMRA) in late 1999 to provide assistance in preventing future failures. Pure Technologies undertook a pilot program in 2000 to demonstrate its SoundPrint acoustic monitoring technology which can detect deterioration in pre-stressed concrete, thereby allowing proactive repairs to be carried out.
Pure Technologies will now resume activities on the project, including shipment of the remaining monitoring equipment worth $10.7 million held since political events which took place in Libya during 2011 resulted in a temporary halt in operations
