Water. Desalination + reuse
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BUSINESS | 12 | Desalination & Water Reuse | February-March 2015 coRpoRate changes BP BagS StakE IN SaltworkS Oil giant, BP, has taken a stake in Canadian water treatment company, Saltworks Technologies, through its technology investment arm, BP Ventures. Vancouver-based Saltworks' focuses on challenging water sources found in industrial settings such as shale gas, oil sands, and mining. Its product include ion exchange membranes. "Saltworks has developed cost-effective and robust desalination systems for the world's most demanding applications which require freshwater from highly impaired saline water sources," the company claimed. BP's investment in Saltworks followed similar moves by other companies, including Cenovus Energy, ConocoPhillips, and Teck Resources. The BP investment also came after "successful test projects" between the oil major and Saltworks. Saltworks' chief executive officer, Benjamin Sparrow, said: "BP's investment will immediately go to work as we construct our new manufacturing facility and further grow our field operations team. After successful product uptake in Australia, California, Texas, and Pennsylvania, we are extremely pleased to welcome BP to our shareholder base. BP's investment will increase our scale and our reach." According to BP Ventures its focus is on emerging, strategic technologies for oil and gas exploration and production, and downstream technologies including fuels and chemicals, biotech and bioenergy. It has 30 investments with committed capital of over US$ 200 million the company said. PoSco comPlEtES korEa'S fIrSt commErcIal SEawatEr dESalINatIoN PlaNt Korean construction company, Posco E&C, has completed the construction of what it claims to be the nation's first commercial seawater desalination plant. The 30 Ml/d Gwangyang East Revetment Desalination Water Supply Project supplies water for Posco's steel mill at the port of Gwangyang. The plant was built under an engineering, procurement, and construction contract to provide about 13% of the Gwangyang mill's water demand. Drawing on its experience in Gwangyang, Posco plans to enter overseas desalination markets including those in the Middle East and Latin America as well as the Korean domestic desalination market. According to Posco, the plant deploys a patented method for the direct coupling of ultrafiltration and seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO). Posco claims its staged SWRO has increased the water recovery rate from 40-45% to 50-55%. cal am StrIkES dEal oN tESt wEll Utility, California American Water (Cal Am), won Coastal Commission approval for a slant test well programme only days after it struck a deal with cement maker, Cemex, to allow the water firm to drill slant test wells, and possibly production wells, on Cemex' north Marina sand mining plant site. Following the commission's approval Cal Am's president, Rob MacLean, said: "We now have the opportunity to study the feasibility of the preferred intake location and method, as selected by a broad group of stakeholders, and to confirm modeling work that supports that selection." The test wells will be for Cal Am's proposed 48 Ml/d seawater reverse osmosis plant under its Monterey Peninsula desalination project at the north Marina. Plans call for the well head to be buried in a vault 3 m below ground with the well extending 244 m at a 20° angle aimed beneath the ocean floor. The settlement with Cemex came after Cal Am filed a lawsuit seeking to force Cemex to grant access to the site. Under the deal Cal Am will pay US$ 350,000 for the right to drill and operate its proposed test well programme to evaluate the impact of pumping from Salinas Valley groundwater subsea aquifers. Cal Am engineering manager Ian Crooks said the next best location was more than 7.5 km away and would have added some US$ 14 million in additional project costs. "We wish to thank Cemex for their efforts in this matter," Crooks said. The agreement avoids an extended legal fight over the Cemex site that could have caused further delay to the project which is now expected to be finished by early 2019. That would be two years into a state-ordered cutback in abstraction from the Carmel River, which provides 70% of the peninsula's water supply. Cal Am and Cemex had been engaged in months of talks over the proposed well site, and Crooks said Cal Am believed it had an agreement before Cemex backed out, prompting the lawsuit. Cal Am required Coastal Commission approval following the utility's appeal against a denial of approval by Marina City council. The commission has recommended that Cal Am should cease pumping should levels at one or more wells within 1,700 m of the test well to fall by 30 cm or should salinity to rise by more than two parts per thousand. Marina city and Marina Coast Water District officials, as well as farmers in the area, have all registered their concern that the test wells and any subsequent production wells could spoil the area's water supply. Marina has claimed also that Cal Am's test well programme contravenes a 1996 ruling limiting Cemex to pumping 500 acre-feet of water (616,741 m³) a year from the site. Cal Am's test well could pump up to 5 million m³ a year. dESalItEch laNdS US$ 11 mIllIoN IN vENtUrE caPItal fUNdINg US desalination and water treatment firm, Desalitech, in its latest funding round, has landed US$ 11 million in venture capital from existing investor, Liberation Capital, and the AquAgro Fund. The money will help Desalitech expand sales of its water purification products, the company said. This investment round – which was led by Philadelphia-based family investment firm, Spring Creek Investment Management – was Desalitech's third following two earlier private equity rounds bringing the total to US$ 23.3 million. Liberation Capital previously invested US$ 11.3 million in private equity in Desalitech, including US$ 5 million last year. "To gain participation from all previous investors in this third, oversubscribed funding round is a great vote of confidence," said Desalitech chief executive officer, Nadav Efraty. Liberation Capital is a Global Private Equity Fund specializing in project finance for distributed renewable energy, water and wastewater projects. AquAgro Fund is a venture capital fund formed to focus primarily on Israel's innovative water and agriculture technologies, as well as other clean technologies.