The land within and surrounding the oilfield has been scarred by dangerous remnants of war: land mines and unexploded ordnance.
Their management and removal are a priority in ensuring the safety of everybody working at Rumaila.
In 2010, ROO conducted an environmental baseline impact survey on the condition of Rumaila’s land before beginning any remediation work. The survey identified 80 old unlined oil pits and basins associated with field facilities which had resulted in the land being contaminated.
Without remediation, an ongoing environmental risk to Rumaila’s biodiversity, land, air and groundwater would exist.
In 2025, a total of 47,000m2 of land was cleared and returned for oilfield use, with 155,000m3 of soil freed of unexploded ordnance (UXO), cleaned, treated and returned. Intensive work over the past two years has meant that more than a million square metres of land have been treated during that period, with the initial target to remediate 5 million m2 of land reached during 2025.
As well as bringing valuable land back to health and use, oil is also recovered during the process, with some 8 million barrels having been recovered as a result of the land remediation programme.
Construction of the Rumaila Waste Centre (RWC) in 2016 enables ROO to responsibly treat and recycle its waste. In so doing, the RWC:
In 2025, more than 21,830m3 of waste was compliantly and safely disposed of alongside the segregation and repacking for future recycling of 597 bales of plastic bottles, 30 bales of aluminium cans, 22 bales of tin cans and 109m3 of glass
A new medical waste incinerator was operational at the RWC throughout 2025, with 13.4m3 medical waste safely disposed of by ROO clinics.
