Water. desalination + reuse

BUSINESS | 14 | Desalination & Water Reuse | August-September 2014 coRpoRAte chAngeS JapaNESE gIaNtS BUy MEtIto StakE Japanese companies Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) have acquired a 38.4% stake in United Arab Emirates-based water management company Metito for an undisclosed sum. And Japan Bank for International Cooperation ( JBIC) is providing Metito, a capital intensive business, with up to US$ 92 million to fund growth. The bank said its investment aims at supporting the overseas business deployment of the two Japanese companies in what Metito described as the strategic partnership. MC and MHI acquired their stake in Metito predominantly from existing shareholder Gulf Capital which has reduced its holding from 56% to 23.8% Metito said. And World Bank member, International Finance Corporation, halved its holding in Metito to 3%. The Japanese companies in the partnership expected the deal to strengthen ties between the Middle East and Japan in the water and wastewater industry, and to build a platform in emerging markets. Metito chief executive officer Mutaz Ghandour, said: "Metito is already well poised to tap into projects of various scales, and this partnership, in addition to the investment by JBIC, will expedite the company's growth." Speaking to Reuters he said: "We have some very aggressive plans and we feel there is definite room in the global water market for us to be the world's leading emerging markets player." Chief operating officer of MC, Masaji Santo, said he saw "massive growth potential." in strategic emerging markets. Metito said it had reported an annual compound growth rate of 17% in revenues, and 33.6% in net profits over the past eight years. aqUarIoN BUyS HagEr + ElSÄSSEr Water treatment firm Aquarion Group has acquired German water technology company Hager + Elsässer for an undisclosed sum. Aquarion's acquisition of Stuttgart-based Hager + Elsässer takes it to more than 250 employees with revenues topping more than €70 million (US$ 94 million). Chief executive officer of Aquarion, Karl Michael Millauer, said the benefits of the acquisition included "enhancing our portfolio of technologies and solutions, expanding our presence around the world, and adding the expertise and experience of this world-leading company." Hager + Elsässer systems and solutions for industrial process water and wastewater treatment and resource recovery are installed in thousands of plants in more than 160 countries. Its flagship technologies include proprietary biological, thermal and membrane solutions. Hager + Elsässer has an assembling workshop in Dresden, Germany and subsidiaries in the UK, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Uk watEr fIrMS tEaM Up IN watEr rEUSE plaNS UK water supply companies South East Water and Southern Water have joined forces in developing two water reuse schemes as part of South East's bid to ensure supply meets demand to 2040. In the first scheme, South East and Southern will take the tertiary treated water from the Aylesford wastewater treatment works in Kent and treat it for potable supply. It will use existing treatment facilities but the company notes that further reverse osmosis treatment may be required. The scheme is expected to yield 12.5 Ml/d. The second scheme will take effluent from Southern's state-of- the-art Peacehaven wastewater works in Sussex for further treatment to yield 25 Ml/d. The reuse projects form part of South East's water resource management plan, designed to ensure supply and demand are balanced between 2015 and 2040 and signed off recently by the UK government this week. The plan combines demand management with resource enhancement. On the demand management side, a customer- metering programme will mean at least 90% of South East customers are on a meter by 2020, saving 25 Ml/d. There will also be further leakage control and water efficiency measures that deliver 6 Ml/d. Without action, South East calculated demand will exceed supply on the back of 19% population growth (to 2.5 million) by 2040 and reduced water availability. David Hinton, asset and regulation director for South East, said: "This plan sets out what we will need to do, where and by when, to meet the future need for water from people, businesses and also the environment. "We asked for our customers' views on these proposals during a 12-week public consultation when there was overwhelming support for our proposals." DEgréMoNt EyES DESalINatIoN coNtractS IN MExIco French water services company Degrémont is seeking to participate in a public tender to construct desalination plants in three Mexican states according to a Mexican state news outlet. The French firm's Mexican subsidiary, Degrémont Mexico, is reported to be looking at tenders in the states of Sonora, Baja California and Baja California Sur, in the state capital La Paz. According to Mexico's water commission, Conagua, desalination projects in the country's northern region total some US$ 716 million. Degrémont has been active in Mexico for some four decades. It began operations in 1999 at a desalination plant in Oaxaca state after winning a contract to finance, design, construct, and operate the project for Mexico's state-owned oil firm Pemex. Desalination projects in Mexico started gathering momentum after the 2007 completion of the Los Cabos facility. Degrémont - the water services arm of French multinational Suez Environnement - operates in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia. The company provides desalinated industrial water for Minera Escondida in northern Chile's Antofagasta region, operator of the largest copper mine in the world. INDIaN StEEl fIrM plaNS NEw DESalINatIoN plaNt Indian state-run steel firm Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RIN) is planning to set up a desalination plant to make up for the shortfall in water supply to its Visakhapatnam steel plant (VSP) on the country's east coast and become self-reliant in water. RIN has been reported as aiming to desalinate seawater at a rate of around 50 Ml/d from its proposed desalination plant. The company said that currently VSP requires around 175-200 Ml/d, but the supply from the state government sources was only around 125 Ml/d. Water is mainly used in the steel plant for the cooling system used in the plant's Linz-Donawitz converter blast furnace, for producing slag granulation and in the cooling system for the rolling mills used in manufacturing steel products. Also, water supply is required for power generation at VSP's power plant.

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