OWJJ Joint Venture (JV) – comprising Japanese companies Obayashi Corporation and JFE Engineering (JFEE) as well as Indonesian companies PT. Wijaya Karya (Persero) Tbk and PT. Jaya Konstruksi Manggala Pratama Tbk – has been awarded an EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contract by the Indonesian government for a new wastewater treatment plant in Jakarta. This is believed to be the first large-scale wastewater treatment plant in the city.

In its news release, Obayashi explained that as the world’s fourth most populous country, Indonesia continues to achieve stable economic growth and ranks the first in the ASEAN region in terms of economic scale. However, the coverage rate of sewerage system remains at around 12% in the capital city of Jakarta, despite its population of over 10 million.

Given these circumstances, the water environment in the city needs further improvement urgently and therefore the development of sewerage systems – including sewer pipelines and wastewater treatment facilities – are necessitated accordingly.

Jakarta has unveiled the ‘Project for Capacity Development of Wastewater Sector through reviewing the Wastewater Management Master Plan in DKI Jakarta’, which divides the entire Jakarta area into 15 treatment zones and plans to improve the living environment by installing sewerage systems in stages.

According to Obayashi, this latest contract is to build a wastewater treatment plant in Zone 1, which is known as the area of a high population density and many commercial facilities such as shopping malls, as part of Jakarta Sewerage Development Project.

Due to site space constraints, the anaerobic anoxic aerobic activated sludge process + membrane bioreactor (MBR) will be adapted for the wastewater treatment plant with a capacity of 240,000 cu m/day (equivalent to a population of 1.2 million), thus saving space and allowing for efficient wastewater treatment.

Obayashi said the contract will also be undertaken on a unit price contract basis as designed by the Minister of Public Works and Housing of Indonesia, incorporating ‘remote controlled pneumatic caisson method’ and other Japanese advanced technologies throughout, in order to achieve high-quality technology transfers.

Image: Obayashi/OWJJ JV