The Egyptian Indian Polyester Company was planning to establish a facility for producing Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) at the industrial area of Damietta Port. About 80% of the produced PET resin was intended for exportation through Damietta Port, while the remaining 20% was to be distributed to the local market.
The company commissioned Environics to carry out the ESIA required for this project.
The ESIA covered the site preparation, construction, start-up, and operation phases of the project, which encompassed:
– The PET production process within the facility premises
– The Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) and the discharge of the treated wastewater
– The raw material/product storage
Environics carried out the ESIA according to IFC and Egyptian guidelines. The ESIA included:
– Policy, legal and administrative framework
– Project description, which covered the location and layout; project and plant description; utilities; inputs, outputs, wastes, and emissions; construction activities, and labour
– Environmental baseline, which covered:
o Physical environment: climate; air quality and noise; topography; landscape character and land characteristics; geomorphology and geology; soil; earthquakes, and groundwater resources
o Biological environment: ecologies of the wider area and the project site
o Social and economic baseline: population distribution and density; economic activity and employment; infrastructure; health services; education; gender gap, and land use
o Archaeological sites
– Alternatives of the project and its components, such as possible locations and production technologies
– Assessment of the potential environmental impacts and their mitigation measures, which entailed cumulative atmospheric dispersion modeling of emissions to predict the expected levels at the sensitive receptors surrounding the facility, and soil and ground water investigations.
– Environmental management and monitoring plan for the project
– Reporting on public consultation meetings and their results
As part of the ESIA, Environics carried out a QRA, which studied the likelihood and consequences of the scenarios associated with the PET processes. The study comprised:
– Facility and operation description
– Hazards identification, frequency assessment, and consequence assessment
– Risk results
The results were analyzed and compared to the applicable criteria to determine the acceptability of the risks associated with the facility.