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.

• More than 51,000 items of unexploded ordnance (UXO) have been removed.
• More than 280km² of land has been cleared and released and ready for use – an area more than two-thirds the size of Basra City.
• 4.25 million square metres of land remediated – equivalent to 595 standard-sized football pitches.

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 the past decade, ROO has remediated 4.25 million m², including 15 major sites. In addition to this, work has been completed to remove and replace old and contaminated pits with new properly lined engineered pits.

Construction of the Rumaila Waste Centre (RWC) in 2016 enables ROO to responsibly treat and recycle its waste. In so doing, the RWC:

• reduces the demands on local landfill sites by separating what waste can be recycled and incinerating what is not required
• improves the way any hazardous waste such as industrial chemicals are safely packaged and stored
• processes and segregates near to 10 tonnes of waste per day. In 2023, more than 24,800m³ of was compliantly incinerated alongside the segregation and repacking for future recycling of 584 bales of plastic bottles, 33 bales of aluminium cans, 17 bales of tin cans and 70m³ of glass.