I ran the electrical, instrumentation and automation delivery on the $7.46 million WWTP Ureki design-build project, under FIDIC Yellow Book conditions with ADB Loan 3078-GEO as the financing instrument. Ludwig Pfeiffer Kassel was contractor of record, the employer was United Water Supply Company of Georgia, and a Spanish supervision team provided independent quality oversight and ADB compliance monitoring.
Ureki is known for black magnetic sand and summer crowds, and until this plant it sent untreated wastewater straight into the Black Sea. Capacity is 8,212 m3 a day, sized for 40,000 population equivalents into the 2040s. The whole design-build was completed in thirteen months, which for a biological plant of this complexity is an extremely tight programme.
The plant does triple-nutrient removal - BOD5, nitrogen and phosphorus - to a standard that exceeds the EU Urban Wastewater Directive. Aerobic zones handle carbon removal and nitrification, dedicated anoxic zones handle denitrification, and secondary clarifiers separate the sludge. Phosphorus comes out by chemical precipitation, with dosing controlled continuously by SCADA against real-time inline phosphorus sensors. That last detail matters more than it sounds: automated proportional dosing prevents both under-dosing, which fails the standard, and over-dosing, which just converts chemical spend into extra sludge.
The coastal site had its own engineering. Groundwater and tidal influence had to be managed through the earthworks, and the soil conditions required specific foundation and waterproofing solutions to protect the structures. Reactor basins were built and waterproofed, aeration diffuser grids installed across the aerobic zones, internal baffles and flow diversion built into the anoxic zones, and SCADA cabling drawn across every treatment stage concurrently with the civil works rather than after them.
My scope ran through the mechanical and electrical phase into commissioning: blowers and aeration, the chemical dosing systems with their inline sensors, UV disinfection trains, centrifuge dewatering, and the Siemens SCADA panel brought live with every instrument loop verified. Process commissioning began with seed sludge and a 21-day acclimatisation under controlled nutrient loading, after which aeration rates, sludge recirculation and dosing were progressively optimised against effluent sampling.
Contractually the project ran clean. One hundred and forty-seven FIDIC clauses were managed proactively across a team with a German contractor principal, Spanish supervision and Georgian subcontractors - three professional cultures on one site - and it closed with zero formal disputes. That is not luck; it is what happens when potential disputes get converted into coordinated resolutions early.
The contract also carried a 12-month structured O and M handover, and that is the part I would keep in every contract if it were up to me. Georgian operators were trained through classroom and on-plant sessions, with simplified visual troubleshooting protocols developed and handed over with the plant. They finished the year running it themselves rather than waiting on a phone call.
WWTP Ureki, Georgia - Project Summary and Related Work
PROJECT SUMMARY